Greener Grass [09]
Title: Greener Grass [Part Nine]
Pairing(s): YoonSic
Rating/Genre: NC-17; AU Healing Romance
Warning(s): Sex and Void, Void and sex. Some religion chatter.
Disclaimer: I don't own Soshi. I don't own anyone, in fact. All Fiction.
Author's Notes: I’m going through so many emotions right now. Per usual, show some love ‘cus back-and-forth with y’all is the bee’s knees. >.< Enjoy reading~~
Part Nine:
--
“What are you downloading?”
Yoona picked a fresh cherry from a bowl on the night table, entertaining Jessica’s nosiness. It was three in the morning and she’d never felt so alive.
The couple had been marathoning since the afternoon. Sex, sex, sex, nap, sex, nap, sex, and finally, sustenance. Slanting a screen for the latter to see, Yoona said, “A word game.”
Jessica tossed a pit into a second bowl, frowning. “Who gave you permission?”
“Your iPad’s absurdly boring, Mature Sica. News, weather, stock apps...Yawn City.”
“It’s my professional iPad.”
“Well, now it has a word game. You’re welcome.” Sweetness burst in Yoona’s mouth; she’d been craving this fruit lately. “I’ll set a high score and you’d better beat it next time I poke around on this thing.”
“An assignment,” Jessica mumbled into Yoona’s bare shoulder.
“Yep.”
Twenty minutes passed of Yoona tap-blasting asteroids of letters with an avid audience. This was her ideal element. Serenely au naturel, rebuffing her partner’s snarky comments and shivering from gentle strokes at her rib lines.
The ‘grass is always greener on the other side’ idiom lied. This timeline’s issues were endurable, worth the trimming, weeding, maintenance.
Those strokes migrated to Yoona’s breasts--pinching, fondling. Into her neck, Jessica murmured, “I believe your score’s high enough.”
Yoona bit in a devious smirk. “Two thousand more points should suffice.”
“Lower the bar,” she joked, trailing fingertips to the center of Yoona’s stomach, “to goad me into competition. I’m intimidated as it is.”
“Poor loser.”
Jessica sailed maroon nails along lanky, soft arms. Deftly, she switched off the tablet. “Oopsie.”
“Sabotaging my progress, huh?”
“You’re sabotaging mine.”
Familiar tips scraped Yoona’s backline; purls of pleasure scaled her spine. “And what progress would that be?”
“To make you moan again.”
“Oh,” she breathed, intent on teasing, “no Sunday morning work?”
Jessica’s sigh chilled where she’d been sucking, nibbling onto a white shoulder. “Optional.”
Optional? A far cry from ‘When am I not busy?’.
Gears of lovemaking whirred into motion. Weak, Yoona deferred to the concentrated swipes to her ear, the underside of her chin. The caressing at her breasts done only by one who appreciated palm-sized mounds. Larger, rounder breasts pillowing her recline into the silkiest skin she’d ever touched.
Yoona swiveled her ass between slender, petite thighs. Exercising her whole body to flush Jessica with need. To earn tasty, articulate swears against her ear.
Rich wetness met Jessica’s hand. She toyed carefully with a sensitive nub and Yoona shuddered, watching graceful fingers enter and retract in a fluid blur. Moaning, she melted into Jessica’s sensual back hug and weaved tangles into honey hair.
“Yoong, my god.”
Yoona gulped a lungful, too busy spasming onto Jessica’s two digits to brag. She had no precedent for releasing so frequently, so hard.
Without extracting her fingers, Jessica maneuvered on top and continued her deep pumping. “Are you a reincarnated porn star?”
“No,” Yoona answered confidently.
“You don’t know that.”
They kissed. Airily, eyes open. Wantonly consenting to anything.
The taller brunette cruised a second wave, elated to be so turned on. For twenty-eight years, she’d been deprived of long-term, ridiculously fantastic penetration by a woman who’d memorized her tightness. Angles that coiled her fingers into fists.
Dedication and love spiked sex’s appeal. Otherworldly satisfaction, she’d describe it.
“This calorie-burning. No gym for me next week.” Jessica drawled onto her wife’s glistening forehead, collapsing.
As Yoona gathered herself, she sandwiched a hand between them. Her fingertips drifted to firm abs. And when she found the faintest dent, she rubbed in earnest, loving patterns.
Bedroom lights illuminated these dents. Pale streaks, testament of two Cesareans. Detouring, she had kissed the maternal scars at Jessica’s bikini line, expressing adoration Alter-Yoona was either too stupid or hurt to communicate.
Women shouldn’t hide this imperfect evidence. Nor should they become self-conscious while getting dressed.
Im Sooyeon was human. Exquisitely human.
“I’m so lucky,” Yoona husked.
Jessica laid her head onto her crossed arms. “You’re pensive.”
“Recuperating.”
Coloring, she fanned her face. “Thinking before you speak. It’s nice.”
“Told you I’ve changed.” Yoona puckered for a short smooch. “I’ve changed for the better.”
“For the best. I didn’t believe I could love you more, but I do.”
“I’ll try to beat that high score, too.”
Jessica secured a cherry into the teeth and offered a juicy half. They munched, grinning. “You got the seed.”
Yoona stuck out her looped tongue, revealing the wholly cleaned pit to dispose.
“I swear your tongue is cognizant.” She licked a fingertip. “I’m pretty lucky myself.”
“You are.”
“What’s that look? Am I filet mignon?”
Yoona waggled a dark brow. Then, with a whirl of her finger, she commanded, “Turn around.”
“One more orgasm and I’m passing out,” Jessica remarked, rising to her hands and knees. “Fany roasted you for low stamina, right? That liar.”
A mouth-watering view met her famished gaze. Slim, elegant curves of a willing lover, petals of arousal that puffed Yoona’s flesh to the sky. Wasting no time, her tongue ventured ruthlessly. Dainty thumbs traced the underside of smooth, pearlish thighs.
This shiny life didn’t rust to ruin after all. The vetted bits added texture to their history--important segments Yoona experienced through her own eyes, not a former version’s.
Thus said the woman whining and undulating onto Yoona’s mouth: she ‘gained perspective’. To cherish this rebirth.
“Ah, fuck,” she gasped as Jessica’s head descended to her lap. Yoona drew her legs to accommodate the reciprocated action, shallowly thinking this was the greatest way to die.
Not any time soon, though.
Because she quit living solely for herself.
...
Hours later, Yoona tip-toed back into their bedroom. She’d showered and thrown on some clothes for a quick next door visit without disturbing the woman tangled into tousled sheets. She sprinkled her cool shoulders with kisses, grinning once Jessica whimpered contently.
“Morning, love.”
Her arms folded around Yoona’s neck. Sleepy smile undeterred, splendid. “Good morning, you. What time is it?”
Yoona whispered, “Ten.”
“Ten...” Jessica yelped as she bounded into a sitting position. “Haeun and Joonie! They-they’re--”
“Fully dressed. Eating blueberry pancakes at Fany’s.”
When only a puzzled stare responded, Yoona snickered. “Yes, Sica. I’m a capable mother, too.”
“I could’ve helped.”
“I let you sleep in. Also, I tidied our um, aftermath in the rec room.”
Jessica caressed her wife’s cheek, genuinely remorseful. “I’m taking advantage of this ‘nothing’ business.”
“Shhh. You’re not.” Other things crowded her headspace. Sighing, Yoona settled onto an elbow. Fingers grazing Jessica’s stomach in lazy, swirling strokes. “I feel funny.”
“How so?”
Another dream. She’d been hauled onto a stretcher, carted by strange men, deafened by sirens and Chanhwi’s ubiquitous weeping. In anticipation for her angel, Yoona woke up, teared mascara striping her skin.
It made her admit she hadn’t mourned her own death.
“What if I’m...not me?”
“Yoong.” Jessica crept closer. “I don’t understand.”
“Say I had clones. Or, I don’t know, a hundred copies of me. Could you love any of them?”
“Identical genes?”
“But, varied upbringing, yes.”
The woman’s lip drew in, thoughtful. “You’ve been dwelling on your alternate lives and universes theory, haven’t you?”
Yoona’s eyes watered. “Could you? Could you love any of them--us?“
“Yes. Because they’re all you.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Would you love an alternate version of me? Jewel thief Jessica, for instance?”
Yoona conceded, willing to accept her optimism. “Jewel thief Jessica. College dropout, famous, poor, angel Sooyeon. I’d love any of them.”
“There you go.”
They exchanged quiet smiles. Several minutes passed of Yoona crying and Jessica kissing each cheek, prying for nothing.
Upon the last press of lips, Jessica whispered, “The afterlife scares me.”
Yoona’s pulse tripped. “Mm?”
“It does. Abrahamic concepts of fire and brimstone were spooky, sure. Yet, heaven freaks me out. If heaven exists, at what age would I live forever? And what would I do up there? Are our minds wiped of our struggles, downfalls, and awful memories? Because without those, I’m no longer me. I’m a machine.”
“Never thought of it that way.”
“Despite my ambition, good grades, strides in university, I wished for my own family early. Comfortable, established, and boringly domestic. Did I rush us?”
“No. Please, don’t belittle yourself.” Yoona scrapped old assumptions about the average housewife. They didn’t sloth around like listless homebodies; they worked their asses off to keep everyone afloat. For years, Jessica balanced bread-winning and the dominant parent role while Alter-Yoona sulked in her study. “Motherhood’s glorious.”
“We choose our purpose in life. I’m here to put as much love as possible into our kids.” Jessica’s head hit a pillow. “And you.”
Blushing, Yoona searched the ceiling. “I love it. I share this purpose.”
“To give our kids and each other what our parents couldn’t?”
“We’re not our parents; we’ve outperformed them.” She stole Jessica’s hand, clasping it between her own. Sheepishly, firmly--how she would’ve held them for a marriage proposal. “Sica.”
Breath short, she replied, “Yes?”
“Are you any good at Super Mario?”
Jessica fluttered her eyes in an expert roll. “No. Those water levels deter me.”
“Do the fish get you?”
“The squids.”
“Well,” Yoona elaborated, smirking, “those squids are called Bloobers. While you’re swimming your puny Mario through the sea, probably missing all the coins, Bloobers pursue you. And you keep playing and they keep owning you ‘til you’ve depleted your sad life count.”
“There’d better be a point to this.”
“There is. So, you’re staring at your ‘Game Over’ screen. I’m sure you’ve been acquainted.”
“Waiting on your point.”
Yoona’s heart blazed in rapid beats. “That’s life. We’re pommeled by obstacles until we’ve depleted our energy. Alternate versions come into play ‘cause when you hit continue, it doesn’t start you from the very beginning--it drops you in your most recent level, your latest checkpoint. You wouldn’t look at your duplicate character and ask, ‘Is this the same Mario?’; you simply move on, determined to get it right this time.”
Raising bewildered eyebrows, Jessica asked, “You believe this?”
“Maybe.”
“Life’s a game, then? Endless possibilities, endless outcomes in parallel universes randomly refreshed and substituted when we die?”
“Refreshed by choice.”
“By choice. Does everyone get this conscious choice?”
Yoona shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“How you do win? Every game has a goal.”
“When you have no major unfinished business, I guess.”
“Then, what happens?”
“I can’t know that, either.” Yoona patted her sweaty neck. “What do you think?”
“I think...” Jessica thumbed the lines in Yoona’s knuckles, shaking her head. “I think you need a vacation.”
“Fair enough.”
“Let’s go out as a family today.”
Yoona couldn’t stifle her delight. “Oh? Are you suggesting we play weekend hooky?”
“We’ll do something fulfilling. Educational...” She tapped on her iPad, flicking to a colorful website of turtles and 2D wave animations. “Your Bloober speech inspired me. We should visit this aquarium.”
Yoona eyed a blocky squid avatar. “Joonie and Haeun will flip; they love animals.”
“Mind collecting them while I shower?”
“Not at all.”
It’d take a while for Yoona to wrap her head around this second chance.
Why her? Impoverished people, the abused and exploited, rape victims deserved free will to start over more than a woman who defied her parents and cared little for anyone but herself.
How’d the universe judge these things, if it did at all? She could be a test, a beta subject for a future of timeline-switching. Or, this ‘transcendental placement service’ existed since the beginning of time.
She’d stalled in the Void for a week. Was that planned, too? Landing her in a mall to meet two universe-changing children? Had Alter-Yoona lost her soul?
Or was she reset?
...
“Maaaaaaaaa,” Thing Three blubbered, holding a nicked elbow out to his mother, “he bit me!”
Unable to reach the other two triplets, Tiffany flung a balled brochure at Thing Two’s thick head. “What’d I say about biting people?”
“He called me ugly!” the boy hollered in his defense.
“What the!? You’re brothers! If one’s ugly, you’re all ugly.”
In Yoona’s merry delirium, she recklessly mentioned the trip to her best friend. Tiffany supposedly had a freshly-baked dating revelation (of ‘catastrophic’ proportions) and that meant inviting herself and the Trips.
Ergo, the rambunctious crew stuffed into Tiffany’s gas guzzler for a day of stress-free escapades.
Where to hit up first? The aquarium’s interactive kids’ section! At the amphibian tank, Yoona cackled at Haeun repurposing lily pads over her jacket like bra cups. Jessica helped Tiffany manually hunt through a vat of beach sand for a lost earring. Meters away, The Terrors conned Joonie into salt water combat.
...staff not-so-politely banned from that section, citing terrible conduct.
Public ousting knocked their fun by a rung. Regardless, Minjoon, drenched from the chest down, waddled too clownishly to stay angry. The eccentric boy sloshed in his midtops, leaving an incriminating floor trail.
Not only he filled the cute quota. Haeun, prolonging her bossy streak, wouldn’t shut up until one of her mothers matched her braided pigtails hairstyle. Enduring seven rounds of rock-paper-scissors, Jessica--unsurprisingly--lost to Yoona.
“Hey, little lady,” Yoona baited. “Want some candy? It’s in my front pocket.”
Sica swatted her ass, wryly defiant. “Pervert.”
Following two tours and a stint at the penguin exhibit (Joonie formed a new obsession), the massive tanks were beyond the most impressive. Haeun invented a name for every solitary species, the Trips lost their shit as Great White Sharks casted menacing shadows overhead, and Tiffany--ever the flirt--pageant waved to one of the male scuba divers.
“Who’s that dude?” Thing One asked, single eyebrow notched in confusion.
Tiffany didn’t miss a beat. “Your future step daddy.”
“Maaaaaaaa...”
“Jesus. I’m foolin’ around.”
Amidst the spectators, blue-hued depths, and perpetual noises of tourism, Yoona and Jessica paddled in bashful serenity.
They’d toss out a comment, an observation. Then, their eyes would meet for an inevitable blush. Afterglow behavior.
Jessica subtly brushed her lips along Yoona’s ear. “We’re transparent.”
“Only to each other. And Fany.”
“Can’t wait to hear her dilemma.”
“I’m sure it’ll be racy.”
“Yoomie!” Haeun tugged her to squat, pointing at a peculiar yellow fish peeking from the coral. “Banana head! He’s a banana head.” She sucked in her cheeks to imitate the clueless animal.
Feeling dorky herself, Yoona did the same. “Banana head is shy.”
“Joonie, Joonie!” The girl booped her little brother’s belly. “Fishy lips!”
He whimpered. “I don’ like Banana head.”
Their mothers exchanged ‘oh crap’ faces. Of course Joonie wouldn’t be partial to his allergies’ enemy.
“Joon Buggy,” Jessica wagged their clasped fingers. “Sleepy?”
He blinked bushbaby eyes up at her, pouting sheer misery. “Penguins.”
“We already saw the penguins. What about turtles and octopi and all the bizarre-looking fish?”
“They don’ wear suits, Mummy.”
“Sea lions eat penguins,” Haeun added, baring her gums. “They chomp them in one bite! Omnomnom.”
Joonie blanched. “Nuh uh!”
“Yep. If the sea lions find your penguins, they’re done for!”
Thing Two, who’d been fogging his nose on the glass, closed-eye cheesed like his mother. “Blood and guuuuuts!”
In a matter of seconds, the three-year-old clambered into his Mummy’s arms, judging the hecklers below. “Nuh uh, nuh uh, nuh uh! Penguins are fast an’ slippy so lions won’ catch ‘em!”
The Trip made claws of his nail-bitten fingers. “Your penguins are prolly muteelated. Snapped beaks and feathers! Deeeeeeaaaaad!”
“Mummy!!!”
Certainly, the Things inherited more than unibrows from That Man.
“Scram, kid,” Yoona lightly steered the monster towards his brothers, equally concerned that Haeun was laughing her butt off. “These sea creatures probably eat better than us. No-one’s killing each other.”
“Babe?”
Yoona leaned in for Jessica to whisper, “Joonie’s bored. Want to revisit the penguin exhibit?”
Just the two of them? She shrugged. “If...if he won’t mind.”
“Try.”
“Hey, cutie,” the woman cooed as Jessica pried him from her chest. He tended to hold onto her bra straps, Yoona noted. “I miss the penguins, too. Wanna go?”
Joonie unslitted an eye. “With Mummy?”
“Mummy’s staying to see the rest of the tanks, but I prefer birds in tuxedos.”
“Lions didn’ eat ‘em, Yoomie?”
Ignorant months prior, that nickname bothered Yoona. Enlightened, she now wore it like a badge of honor.
She’d learned. Mysterious smoker man had a point.
“Not if hero Joonie is around.”
Yoona had a lot on her plate. Alter-Yoona’s past. Loved ones’ (and her own) deaths. The possibility of extended family out there. Blackish moments that depended on others’ memories. The mixed love and hate for man who shot her into a greener timeline. Remorse for the Yoona fate displaced.
Though, as Joonie celebrated the breathing status of penguins dancing circles underwater, those worries shriveled to naught. Reinforced life’s purpose.
Yoona considered pet options, watching Joonie mimic his new favorite animal, shuffling in his coat and Rilakumma backpack, jingling a glass rose clip. When he stretched his tan arms and climbed onto Yoona’s back for a better view, she chose to stop dissecting her second chance.
...
An hour later, their gang convened in the starfish-muraled dining hall. Joonie’s clinginess was a hell of a drug, but it relieved Yoona to worm him into a booster seat. Her bones needed the rest.
Jessica grinned, pulling a chair out for her wife. “Should I mention it now or...”
“Don’t even,”Yoona grumbled beneath a plastic penguin beanie. Pinwheel and all.
“It’s cuter on Joonie.”
“Well, duh. It’s age-appropriate for him.“ Twinned beanies were Joonie’s suggestion; she couldn’t decline. “Gift shops are satan’s playground.”
The table chatted, laughed. Housed a triplet slap battle. Haeun reminded everyone to wash their hands. This still baffled (and intrigued) Yoona as she massaged her temple of a dull ache.
Hunger pains, she presumed.
While lunching on aquatic-themed entrees, Tiffany delved into her self-proclaimed ‘catastrophe’.
“Ortho Adonis’...” Her fingers drew a distinctly penile outline. “looks exactly like That Man’s.”
Soda flew up Yoona’s nose. “Pardon?”
“Is that a good sign or an omen or...”
“I don’t--”
“He adores the Things, knows the lyrics to Britney’s ‘Toxic’. His abs are so chiseled, I could grate cheese on them! Mama likey.”
“Lifetime supply of shredded cheese. What’s not to like?”
“I’m not lyin’, girls!” Tiffany pierced at her salad like a madwoman, authentically distressed. “His--Thing Three! I swear I’ll spend your whole trust fund on Botox. Stop playing with your food!”
“Maaa!” The boy swam the custom-cut fish cake midair. “Isn’t it shaped like Nemo?”
“That is Nemo.”
“Whah?!”
Unfazed by the children’s meltdown, Fany hissed, “Their dicks could stunt double for one another. Uncanny. Their cut, every divot, vein--”
Jessica pushed her plate. “I’m not hungry anymore.”
“Right?! It’s a calamity!”
“Wait, wait.” Yoona waved her hands of the mental picture. “You said Ortho Beau adores the Things? As in, your Things?”
Tiffany glanced from Yoona to Jessica, blank-faced. “Why? Is that strange?”
“Marry him tomorrow.”
“Tonight,“ Jessica corrected.
“It’s a big commitment.” Fany’s smile turned to suggestive sludge. “A big, big--”
“Mummy,” Haeun interrupted in well-timed grace, “I’d like a fruit cup, please.”
Jessica smiled. “That sounds nice. Who else w--”
“I WANT CAKE!!!” Thing One thundered over the woman. “Double fudge cake with frosting!”
“How ‘bout a cup of whoop ass!?” Tiffany rose from her chair, motherly tone locked in. “What’d an apple ever do to you?”
“Fruit’s for jackwagons!”
“Who the hell taught you that word? Your father?!”
Haeun couldn’t have gasped louder. “Ms. Fany! You cursed twice!”
“I’m grown!” However, heeling to Jessica’s glare, Tiffany apologized. “Um, sorry. My mouth’s dirty.”
“Cake, Ma! Cake!” Thing Two King Kong pounded his chest. Joonie copied the brazen gesture, cracking himself up.
“You’ll get cavities,” Little Diva argued on his mother’s behalf. Her pointer finger flicked Thing Two’s nose in prissy reproach. “You’ll get a million bazillion cavities and your teeth will fall out.”
“My teeth grow like a shark’s!”
“Fibber!”
“I’m half Korean, half cyborg, half shark!”
Demonstrating, the three-halves creature sunk into a mouthful of Haeun’s arm. The five-year-old cried for dear life.
Jessica appeared on the edge of explosion. Fany ripped the boy free and forced him into timeout under the table. Though, she smiled heinously, muttering, “Save the kink for your wedding night, you two.”
Fuck to the no.
Yoona barely navigated ‘boobie’ conversations. Coupling her princess--with a Thing, no less--provoked a knee-jerk protectiveness of cosmic proportions. Channeling her late mother, she thought dimly.
Haeun drama queened out. Her excessive complaints wouldn’t subside until both Mummy and Yoomie ushered her to the bathroom.
His teeth drew two dots of crimson from her forearm. The sight made Yoona woozy.
“What if he has rabies!?” their daughter whined.
Jessica’s lip twitched, jokes fighting to surface. “He’s vaccinated.”
Rabies. Cholesterol. These kids were too much.
By the waist, Yoona hoisted Haeun to the warm running sink. “Does it hurt?”
“N-no. I just don’t like blood, Yoomie.”
Likewise.
“Don’t think of it like blood,” Yoona replied without knowing her direction, refastening Haeun’s white Baby-G watch. “Picture it as cherry syrup. That’s less scary, isn’t it?”
“I’m full of syrup?”
“Yep. Because you’re sweeter than candy.”
Jessica bent next to Yoona napkin-drying Haeun’s arm, unpeeling a Doraemon band-aid from her purse. “Cherry syrup. That’s a throwback to simpler years, isn’t it?”
Yoona’s wiping hand froze. “How do you...”
“Should I buy you B12 or ginkgo biloba?” She tugged at her lover’s beanie bill, winking. “Your memory’s spotty.”
“Rude. I have a headache.”
“Your mom adored me before she knew we were dating.” Jessica chuckled. “We’d decided to meet at your parents’ before a date. Nonfiction kept you late and your mom invited me in. We shot the breeze, complimented each other’s hair...” Her thumbs smoothed the bandage over sharkboy marks. “I told her I liked to bake to impress her. And since you’d rather critique a cookbook than read its content, your mom gave me a tutorial.”
“Tell me you wrote it down.”
“You mother wrote it for me. It’s one of our few pleasant memories. The recipe calls for too much sugar, but--”
“I love you, Sooyeon.”
Small red lips twitched into speechlessness. Yoona’s human/angel came through again.
This past life would be her cross to bear. She’d promised Jessica a pleasant future, not to yank the rug from her feet.
Yoona wanted to grow. To squash the post traumatic stress, to trick Sica into rocking more Rainicorn tees.
To live.
“...aaaand, I love you for surviving that shark attack!” She poked the squealing kid’s tummy. “You have fun today?”
Haeun swung Yoona’s arm, dimples indented for a grin. “Family Day’s the best! Can we do it everyday?”
Jessica placed a hand over Haeun’s. “More often, definitely.”
“Really?” Yoona asked, smirk kinked.
“Cutting work hours wouldn’t hurt. I...have no reason to escape.”
Anymore.
And neither did Yoona.
...
Yoona was afflicted. Confused. Immobilized.
The sirens blared.
Wrecked hoodie discarded. Hand-formed gloves pressed and probed. Her naked breasts brushed rough, sterile covers.
Television supplied all her knowledge of these horrific scenes. Foolishly, Yoona assumed ‘never me’. Regardless of her boyfriend’s erratic temper and gun collection--’Never me’.
A bullet ended their relationship, staked her demise.
The lurching ambulance rattled her teeth. Voices above flowed urgently, yet within a practiced rapport.
She wheezed into a mask. Wishing the EMTs to give up. What more could she live for? Who’d she go home to?
Disappointed family. No true friends. No Chanhwi.
Maybe his bullet did her a favor. Without it, she would’ve run away for a day or two, eventually returning to the man who’d ever given a damn, never mind his unconventional means.
And she’d probably get pregnant again.
Please, no.
She’d sooner die.
Hold on.
Yoona blinked slowly. She’d been sucked into a nightmare. The realization disturbed her, for no dream could the pain be this palpable, could sirens be this loud, could the blood have been that red.
Something changed. This dream was unlike the agonizing ones prior.
Bouts through consciousness weighed on Yoona like stone, bursting into the hospital swept hair over her face, the figures moving her had skin, uniforms, varying voices. Someone’s shoes squeaked.
Hospital paraphernalia carried no idealized order. Dark strands pricked her eye.
Plus, she felt cold. Sickeningly cold. Her hands blueish grey.
Yoona flinched, regretting that once her abdomen groaned for care. She panted through an oh-too-real epiphany.
This wasn’t a fucking reenactment.
She was actually dying.
Yoona was back.
Adrenaline coursed through her veins, every muscle. Her eyes welled.
Yoona couldn’t pull through--not in this timeline. Joonie had a slew of makeup techniques to devour and an untapped aptitude for music. Haeun’s interest in mythology, painting, and literature demanded her Yoomie’s guidance. Her children were to reach adulthood, hone their talents, embrace their identities and politics and passions. Conquer every obstacle the world hurled at them. Find love. Proudly invite Yoona and Jessica to their own homes.
Jessica. She needed her wife.
Yoona asked the bright ceiling beams: ‘Where can I find my angel? When will I meet-’
“Sooyeon.”
A man said her name. Gruffly, insistently.
Yoona’s stretcher came to a halt.
Then, lovely, outlined eyes she trusted met hers. In a fierce, bell-ringing freeze frame before the woman’s shoulders dropped in an exasperated sigh at whom she guessed to be a paramedic.
Her herald in a white coat. Polished, petite voice speaking jargon on ‘availability’ and ‘gross mismanagement’. Clutching a clipboard, pointing staff to appropriate posts. Eyebrows knit in concerned professionalism.
Yoona knew her Jessica. Her Sooyeon.
Jung Sooyeon wasn’t an angel. She was a lead of some sort. Director of nursing in a hospital emergency unit.
The director who fixed back onto Yoona and, defying a hectic climate, relayed a sympathetic smile. Lights touched her and the jacket just right, projecting a soft glow. The patient stared.
In this timeline, Sooyeon didn’t belong to her. She didn’t bear their children nor did she fill Yoona’s nostrils with lavender mint at midnight.
They weren’t Sica and Yoong.
To this person, Yoona was a ballistic trauma victim and nothing more.
Her heart took its final lovesick beats as this universe’s Sooyeon grazed ringless fingers to Yoona’s brow. Parting her hair from sweaty skin and skating to her chin.
So caring, so nurturing. Undivine intervention.
Yoona ached to thank her while being whisked into an operating room.
Instead, she died.
...
Kinetic darkness engulfed Yoona. Her body floated.
Flashes of the second life played on a formless screen. Those fateful months from her emergence on the mall bench to the night after their aquarium trip. Twined blissfully around her wife.
Then, the playback disappeared. Replaced by huge blocky letters.
‘PAUSE’
Beneath that hovered an arrow and white words:
‘Save & Continue’ and ‘Quit’
Yoona heard herself scream the first option. A no-brainer. She couldn’t return fast enough to her townhouse with the wobbly nine. Missing another minute--no, second--of her new life put her on edge.
Fate accepted her plea in electronic blips and an ‘OK!’ that almost made her smile.
An unexpected word popped up afterwards.
Larger text, reading: ‘OVERWRITE?’
Yoona folded arms at her naked chest.
What the hell did that mean?
Was this like computer software? Where one couldn’t proceed unless they wrote over the previous file? What would be overwritten? What did that entail?
Fate flaunted its power yet again.
Yoona slowed her roll. Pondering, meditating until she the proper choice flowed from her lips.
...
“Yoomie, Yoomie,” Joonie sang, patting the moisture from Yoona’s cheeks.
She stirred.
Feeling like she’d been hit by a bus. Or a bullet.
“Silly Yoomie, you cry like a baby.”
“Who you callin’ ‘baby’?” the woman fake-growled. In an assault of stringy fingers, she tickled his sides, under a Batman pajama shirt. “You should be asleep.”
Joonie’s face reddened in a hard laugh. “Haeun’s sleeping.”
Indeed, her daughter nodded off in her mountain of plush animals. Right under Yoona’s outstretched arm. A book on moths lay forgotten in her hands.
“My toes dried.”
“Hm?” Yoona rubbed at her eye, rewinding images of her dying body and Jessica in white as she quality checked Joonie’s painted toenails. They alternated rose and silver. At this rate, he’d ask for his skin to be dyed silver, too. “Brilliant. You like it?”
He wiggled his feet. “Uh huh. Will you pretty my eyes?”
Perhaps someone would scout her musical Joonie for an idol company. Those kpop boys received money and adoration for glittering themselves.
“Tomorrow. C’mon, Joon Bug.”
She gathered the polish kit, slid Haeun into a comfier position, and switched the book with her stuffed buffalo. Carefully, she pushed her princess’ fringe from her forehead to place several kisses.
Yoona’s head felt full, heavy while she walked to Joonie’s bedroom. He trailed at her heels--one hand grasping her hand, the other toting a stuffed penguin. Joonie had become her little shadow since their aquarium trip days ago.
“Coach Jong called me ‘stud’ today,” he murmured as she tucked blanket beneath his chin.
“Oh, yeah?” She sat at his bedside. “You okay with that?”
“I dunno.” Joonie pooched pink lips, eyebrows high. “I caught the ball an’ he yelled, ‘Good huddle, stud’.”
“It’s good hustle and he meant it as a compliment. Tell me if that makes you uncomfortable.”
“‘Kay.”
Months prior, her son’s Hello Kitty print curtains evoked shame. As did the pastel hues in his wardrobe and a squadron of Barbies fraternizing amongst action figures and lightsabers.
It worried Yoona. Leading her to triple his time following the Hwang boys and Tiffany’s husband before the divorce. Assuredly, male influences would curb his confusion, impeding the ‘effects’ of an estrogen-heavy household.
It didn’t work.
She once considered their feminine lifestyle responsible. A failure to prepare Minjoon for a host of bullies, death threats, and bleak suicide statistics.
But, Yoomie and Mummy were his parents. If he could feel safe anywhere, it should be home.
She brushed his scented hair, open to letting it grow past his shoulders.
What a blessing to change her attitude before the damage cut too deep. Joonie wasn’t a mistake; he wasn’t broken.
And neither was she.
Yoona clutched her head, giving it a shake. Trying to remember the turning point.
The hospital, ambulance screech, a man’s name echoed in her mind.
“Yoomie, you gonna stay?”
“Mmhmm. ‘Til you fall asleep.”
“I’m not sleepy.”
She smirked and pecked his squishy cheek. “We’ll see about that.”
“Kiss Goonie, too.”
Ick. That penguin toy already showed signs of grime.
For anti-dirt types like Sica, this must’ve been her compromise: a familiar, security blanket-like toy. One free of manipulation besides periodic wash cycles.
She feigned a light kiss on its beak. “G’night, Goonie.”
Like clockwork, Joonie’s eyes drooped shut five minutes later. His pointy eyebrows twitched and she tried to imagine his dreams. Probably brimming with Batarangs and showtunes and lemon ice cream.
Not the gore of hers earlier.
It’d been too vivid. Metal lodged into her stomach and medics sliced her hoody. Jessica didn’t recognize her.
Weird.
On the living room couch, Yoona waited for her wife.
Silently, she hashed out the dream and its haunting realism. Her head lobbed to the side, likened to being drugged. Every muscle numb as though she’d risen from the dead.
Yoona backtracked, recalling details of the past hours, days, weeks, but not the overall picture. Seemed like someone vacuumed fragments directly from her brain.
Chan. Chanhwi.
Hm.
She repeated the name until the front door swished open. Jessica’s ass preceded her as she dragged a keyboard through the foyer. More mysteries.
“Explain,” Yoona laughed, bending to grab an end.
Jessica blew caramel hair from her lashes, grinning kiddishly. “Fany recruited me to your noise pollution.”
“Lemmie guess. Hot Lesbo Keyboardist?”
“How’d you know?”
Yoona shrugged off one of a zillion stories of Fany’s...Fanyness.
Upon moving into the area, Tiffany touted the friendliest face (and bluest humor), whistle-blowing on neighbors who’d shun ‘those strange women’ from the community. Fany cleaved to the Yoona and a Haeun-carrying Jessica. Then, proceeded to spread dirt on every homophobic gossiper in comical retaliation.
Yoona slid the instrument behind the couch; it looked brand new. “Where’d you get this?”
“From Fany. Belonged to you-know-who.”
“How dare. His name is ‘That Man’.”
“My apologies,” she giggled, brushing their noses. “I offered to buy my own and she wouldn’t listen.”
“Ha.”
“We’ll be rocker wives. You like?”
Jessica’s lips were cool from the crisp air. Yoona pressed into them, purring. “Too much.”
She remembered when she first encountered Jung Sooyeon. The staggeringly attractive senior who, to Yoona’s misfortune, sat in the front row whenever the latter presented for their (modest) college LGBT group. Simply glancing at her admirer ruined the order of Yoona’s slides and tangled her rehearsed speech into ‘ums’ and ‘yeahs’.
Yoona saved face enough to play suave when Jessica approached her, intent on a drink at the local bar. Flirty words led to gentle kisses to rushed keys into dorm slots and they slept together that very night.
She woke that next morning to a topless Sooyeon in Yoona’s skimpy briefs, dusting her disaster of a room. Instantly, Yoona slammed the breaks on her life of one-night-stands.
“Sica, do I know a Chanhwi?”
Jessica shouldered out her sleek black jacket, grin cheeky. “Ex-boyfriend?”
Yoona cringed. “Nah, that can’t be right.”
“Not sure, then. An old client, I bet.”
“Yeah...” Her lips curled at the ends. “You’ll make a hot keyboardist. Still...” Yoona bunched frisky fingers into Jessica’s mane, bringing her sex hair to life. “...you gotta look the part.”
Jessica kissed her again. “I’m going to check on our babies.”
“I love you.”
Her wife blushed, a silver glint on the hand stroking Yoona’s jaw. “I’ll love you more if you teach me how to block out Fany’s singing.”
“Damn. We’re doomed.”
“Impossible.”
Upstairs, they parted ways. Jessica--to the kids’ bedrooms. Yoona--to her and Jessica’s joint office.
The study would be converted in the upcoming weeks. Her love’s classic touch already began to bloom in its décor. From an adjusted palette and designer lamps to bookshelves organized by subject.
Paint coats over unfaithfulness.
Yoona and Hyelim’s chemistry had been undeniable, bleeding into love in the harshest times.
She’d be missed. Her warmth, her ability to pose different perspectives. Exchanging stories of victories, womanhood, relatable loneliness. Sadly, Hyelim wasn’t on Joonie’s team and convinced Yoona to start issuing rain checks.
Above all, she wasn’t Jessica.
Cheating provided unconventional, ill-advised coping mechanisms. From a selfish perspective, it served its purpose. Yoona exhausted that resource.
Hyelim didn’t present greener pastures. Only astroturf.
Skirting through the cluttered construction site, Yoona regarded her favorite ornaments: Haeun’s painting and Joonie’s Old Stuffed Batman hooked onto the wall. She’d bugged Jessica about knitting some embroidery shit and earned a solid ‘maybe’.
Oh, Jessica.
Yoona absently removed her wedding band. It sparkled in the overpriced lamp light.
This circle of metal symbolized love, promises, commitment, bargaining, strength...and recovery. Healing.
This warranted a refresher.
A small ceremony. Renewed vows.
Yoona drummed her stinging temple, cursing.
In her last, least fragmented memories, she’d just handed Joonie a box of yellow cleats. Day seven of a steadily building headache scourged her and shopping offered little solace. The maddening pressure in her skull scared her into Googling neurological disorders while she parked on a bench, ready for Fany and the children to finish dumping change into a fountain.
She remembered needing a nap. Badly.
Impatiently, she’d gotten comfortable. And...
Out of her reverie, Yoona scratched her chin. Silver grew hot in her palm.
If only she could shake this weird feeling. This missing piece.
She tossed the ring in one hand. And, for no reason at all, she claimed another item--a flash drive. Verbally, Yoona recited events in attempt to mend these segments:
“Bonding with the kids about penguins and eyeshadow.’
A keychain arced into the air.
“Finding the ring, reconnecting with Jessica.”
She threw in a battery.
“Joonie’s accident.”
Kneaded eraser, a hair clip.
“The worst fight, breaking up with Hyelim.”
One Hershey’s kiss.
“Pool-kissing game.”
A coin.
“Purple stegosauruses....um, some nanny thing? Chicken nuggets...”
Two pens twirled seamlessly.
“Mall bench.”
Then, an unknown force widened her eyes, sapped the pain from her head, hijacked her vocals to utter, “The Void.”
And Yoona realized she was juggling ten objects like a career clown.
When? How? Who taught her--
Something clicked.
Not all the answers. Not even two handfuls. Merely enough to raise the hairs on her arms.
‘OVERWRITE?’
“Yes.”
...holy shit.
Im Yoona believed in one miracle.
End.
[A/N]
--
Aaaand that’s it. You like? ;D
Can y’all believe this freaking story originated as fluff?! LOLOLOL what happened there????
Ngl, I’ll miss these characters. ;____; I probably say that for every ongoing, but this isn’t any less true. Afterlife stuff is so tricky to write because it’s so expansive and can go in ANY direction. Hopefully, my route made sense.
Thank you for embarking with me.
Edit: Omg I just noticed that V-Day is upon us. Think of this completed ongoing as an early present. hahaha
Until the next!!
♥♥♥.♥♥♥.♥♥♥,
checkinyourbra