Come Clean, Summer Breeze (Part 3)

[shineemod_y]

Part 2

It was already dark when Jungah dropped Taeyeon at Jinki and Sunyoung’s place. Unlike summer nights in the city, where the evenings were just as warm as the mornings and the afternoons, at the seaside the temperature dropped quite quickly after the sun set.

Jungah was warm when she pulled Taeyeon into a hug in the middle of the sidewalk. She didn’t let go of the leashes of her dogs as she wrapped her arms around Taeyeon’s body, but the puppies were so sleepy that they didn’t struggle. Not even as the hug went on for several seconds.

Taeyeon hugged Jungah right back, and she even dared to nose the side of the younger girl’s face and lean in to whisper into her ear while her hands gently stroked at her back.

“Thank you,” she said, from the bottom of her heart. “Thank you so much. Not only for listening, but also for opening up to me like that…”

“Thank you, too,” Jungah said, her voice also a whisper. Then, she pressed her lips against Taeyeon’s cheek in a kiss. It was noisy, it was sweet, it was soft, and it had something warm settling in Taeyeon’s chest. “I wasn’t wrong about you. You are something else.”

“You are, too,” Taeyeon said as they pulled away.

For a few long seconds, they did nothing but smile at each other. It was kind of stupid, but Taeyeon had no idea why she preferred to stand out there and do nothing at all as long as she was with Jungah, than to go inside, where it was warmer.

“Go to sleep,” Jungah told her, finally, accommodating two leashes in one hand and one (Monggu’s) in the other. “Or to have dinner, or something.”

“Okay,” Taeyeon replied, smiling a little dumbly “You go also. You and your puppies really need to rest. Good night, Jungah.”

“Good night, Taeyeon-ah.”

☁ ☁ ☁ ☁ ☁

After that afternoon, something shifted between Taeyeon and Jungah.

Taeyeon didn’t stop visiting The Wave, but there was something different.

For starters, they didn’t talk as much as they had the week before on the first days after meeting each other, but whenever there was silence between them, it was never awkward or uncomfortable. It was simply that they didn’t really need to say much. The looks they often exchanged with each other, as well as the light touches they started sharing over the surface of the bar whenever Jungah wasn’t busy, or whenever Jungah walked past Taeyeon - those were the things that spoke the loudest to Taeyeon.

It started to become evident to Taeyeon that the unexplainable magnetism that pulled her towards Jungah also worked the other way, putting them both in orbit around each other.

On Wednesday night, Taeyeon had been sipping on her pomelo juice and texting Kibum while Jungah waited tables, but when the younger girl went back to the bar, she had placed her hand on the small of Taeyeon’s back, and she had leaned in to ask into her ear whether she was bored.

The feeling of her full lips brushing against the shell of Taeyeon’s ear had sent shivers down her spine, and she had almost spilled her glass all over her clothes.

“Jungah-yah,” she had whined while the other girl laughed. She placed her glass over the bar, and almost instinctively had moved her free hand to Jungah’s waist. “Don’t surprise me like that!”

“Why?” Jungah said between giggles, not moving away from Taeyeon’s touch. “Scared you?”

Taeyeon shook her head and tugged on Jungah’s shirt just to tease her. “You wish,” she said, “you just took me by surprise.”

“Sure,” Jungah laughed again. “Who are you texting? Letting your friend Jinki know you will be home late today again?”

“Nah,” Taeyeon replied, daring to pull Jungah a little closer to herself with the hand with which she was grabbing her black polo shirt. She hadn’t had a sip of alcohol, but for some reason she didn’t feel like she needed it to try to approach Jungah. “It’s just Kibum, we’re talking about a show he’s watching - and what’s that thing you said about being home late today? I don’t remember agreeing to staying until too late?”

Jungah shrugged, a little smile on her lips. “That’s because we haven’t agreed on anything yet. But if you stay until after closing and drive Baekhee-unnie home with me like we did last Friday, I’ll treat you to McDonalds’.”

“Wow,” Taeyeon said, whistling in amusement and mock impression. “Sounds fancy.”

“I know, right?” Jungah said, playing right along. “It’s an offer you can’t refuse: free greasy food and a car ride with a hot girl. Like, please, it doesn’t get any better than that.”

“When you put it like that…” Taeyeon started, a little playful smile growing on her lips. She didn’t finish her sentence, but Jungah’s chuckle was all she needed. “Alright, I’ll go with you.”

“You know what’s the worst part about working at night?” Baekhee asked later that night, when they were already halfway towards her home near the center of the city. Unlike the previous time, Taeyeon was sober, so instead of singing loudly to old songs and making a bit of a fool of herself in front of her new friends, they had spent the entire ride chatting and joking around. It was just as nice, if not better.

“What?” Jungah asked, though she kept her eyes on the road. Again, Taeyeon was in the middle between Jungah and Baekhee, but instead of being shamelessly touchy like she had been at the bar, in the car she kept herself in check and put both of her hands between her thighs.

“That Jongdae’s almost always asleep when I get home,” the red-haired girl said, a pout in her face. “I haven’t had a good proper fuck in like, one week and a half.”

Taeyeon snorted at the last part.

“I thought you were going to say something more romantic, like how you missed talking to him or something. But, no. It was about sex,” she said, chuckling.

“Of course it was about sex!” Baekhee declared. “My mom lives with us, so you have no idea how hard it can be to find a moment to get down to business… He works during the day, then I work during the night… My mom is there during the afternoon, or Jongdae has to correct tests, or whatever… It’s utter chaos,” she complained.

“At least you have someone, though,” Jungah pointed out. “Honestly, the most action I’ve had this year has been cuddling with my dogs.”

“That’s sad, Jungah-yah,” Baekhee said in a tone that sounded like she was chastising her. “Especially considering you are among the hottest bachelorettes in this city.”

“Well, I’m picky,” Jungah defended, chuckling, and for some reason her statement made Taeyeon interested. When they had first met, Jungah had come off as flirty to Taeyeon, and the more time they spent together, the more evident it was that there was chemistry between them - that Jungah was interested in Taeyeon just as much as Taeyeon was interested in Jungah.

“And you, Taeyeon-ah?” Baekhee asked, innocently. “When was the last time you got laid?”

Taeyeon almost choked at Baekhee’s blunt question.

Through the corner of her eyes she could see Jungah glancing at her briefly through the rearview mirror, probably assessing how she felt. She seemed almost worried, probably because she was aware of how Taeyeon’s last relationship had finished, but Taeyeon had no trouble shrugging it off with a chuckle.

“Months, also,” she told Baekhee.

“What, but like, two months? Or like, ten months?” The older girl asked, and Jungah snorted at her question. “What! There is a difference!”

“It’s closer to two months,” she admitted, trying not to think about the exact time. If she tried hard enough, she could probably pin-point the very last time she had slept with Minho.

“Damn, it’s still a lot…” Baekhee commented. They were already nearing her home, so she had started getting ready and picking up her stuff from the floor of the car. “It’s good I lamented my sex woes to you guys, then - now I feel way better about myself.”

“Gee, unnie, thank you,” Jungah said, though there was no bite in her voice. Baekhee winked at her, and Taeyeon only laughed.

Jungah and Taeyeon decided that it would be better to buy the food to go instead of eating in the McDonald’s itself, which was why they ended up sitting on the pick-up of Jungah’s truck somewhere in the island, not too far from the residential area where they lived.

They had gone to the parking lot of the beach, and Jungah had parked close enough to the ocean that it was visible from where they were sitting, but also far enough so that the sound of the waves wouldn’t be annoyingly loud. Maybe it was the fact that it was almost four in the morning, but the parking lot was completely deserted.

“Can I ask you a blunt question?” Taeyeon asked as she tried to open one of her bags of ketchup with her fingers. It was a question that had been bugging her for a while, but it only became an important nuisance after their chat with Baekhee in Jungah’s truck. “It’s okay if you don’t want to answer, though…”

“I don’t think anything you ask could be blunter than Baekhee-unnie’s questions,” Jungah commented casually, shooting her a warm smile. She had undone her braid, so now her black hair was styled with unintentional curls that made her look a little bit like one of her poodles, especially with how fluffy her hair was getting with the wind that came from the sea. Even though it was still very dark outside, what Taeyeon could make out of her face was beautiful.

She was always beautiful, though, and it was starting to mess with Taeyeon’s head.

“It’s something along the same line, actually,” Taeyeon admitted, returning the smile.

“Oh, really? Damn,” the younger girl laughed. “Yeah, of course you can ask. You can ask anything.”

“Okay,” Taeyeon started. She licked the remaining ketchup from the corner she had ripped of the little bag before putting it down, and she didn’t look at Jungah when she asked. “So… When was the last time you got laid?”

It took Jungah a split second before she started to laugh, loudly.

“What!” Taeyeon complained, blushing a little and chuckling sheepishly. “I’m curious! And you said it was okay to ask!”

“It is okay, it is! It just caught me a little off-guard,” Jungah explained, her laughter finally dying down. “Well… I had a girlfriend before, but we weren’t really that serious… Met her working in the bar last year, but in January she moved to Seoul. Haven’t heard much of her since then. So, January.”

“Have you never picked up anyone from the bar, though?” Taeyeon asked, curious.

Jungah shook her head. “Nope. Why do you ask?”

Taeyeon frowned a little, thoughtful. “When we first met you gave me the impression that you were flirty, I guess. And you don’t look like you’d have trouble picking anyone up and taking them home…”

“Home to my grandmother?” Jungah asked, chuckling. “No, I’m not the kind that picks people up… I guess I can be flirty at times when I’m working, but that’s because it’s good for the business, you know? But I don’t genuinely flirt with clients.”

“You flirted with me,” Taeyeon pointed out, and her heart sped up in her chest at that. It was a strange, unfamiliar, but exciting feeling. One that only Jungah had given her in a long time, and that she could see herself become addicted to. “You totally flirted with me, right?”

“Yeah. But that’s because you were different,” the younger girl said. She looked straight at Taeyeon’s eyes. “You are different.”

They were sitting next to each other, their legs pressed against each other’s though with two layers of clothing in between. However, it was still warm and it was still a rush of adrenaline to feel Jungah so close to her.

Jungah cleaned the oil of french fries from her fingers on her jeans before she took her hand to Taeyeon’s hair, which she pushed out of the way. It was something that she did often, Taeyeon had noticed - pushing her hair out of the way and then letting her eyes run over her face in an almost studious manner.

“I’m happy I met you,” Taeyeon said, though she had no idea why. She couldn’t help but chuckle when she realized what she had said, but she couldn’t stop herself. She folded the wrapping around her hamburger and put it down on the surface of the pick-up. “Honestly, it’s only been two weeks, but I’m already thinking of coming back.”

“Really?” Jungah asked, tilting her head.

Taeyeon nodded, swallowing her nervousness and bringing her own hand to Jungah’s leg. She placed it just above her knee, and she squeezed it lightly. Her muscles weren’t hard like her own, but she knew that they had been, once upon a time. “Really. The beach is nice, the city is nice, everything is nice… But I think… I think I will miss you the most when I leave.”

“When will you leave?” Jungah asked, finding Taeyeon’s eyes with her own. She didn’t look happy - the expression in her face was somewhere between disappointed and worried, with a hint of anxiety sparkling in her dark eyes.

Taeyeon squeezed Jungah’s leg again, letting her fingers drag against the denim of her jeans almost tantalizingly. She licked her lips when her eyes dropped to Jungah’s mouth for a split second, a strange though not unwelcome heaviness taking over her limbs and turning her mind into a hazy mess. Had Jungah’s face always been so close to hers? She had no idea. All she knew was that she didn’t want her to pull away - not when her cold hand was stroking her warm cheek, not when her black eyes were fixed upon her with an intensity that Taeyeon had missed seeing in someone’s eyes when they looked at her.

“I should leave before July starts…” Taeyeon managed to say. Jungah let out a sound that was almost a whine, and Taeyeon placed her hand higher on her thigh, squeezing harder. She was so close that Taeyeon could count her eyelashes if she tried, and she almost shivered when the younger girl’s fingers went for her jaw, holding her like she was wanting to keep her in place but without enough certainty.

Her eyes fluttered shut, “for fuck’s sake, Jungah… Are you gonna kiss me, or what? Stop beating around the freaking bush.”

Jungah chuckled at Taeyeon’s words, and her breath fanned against Taeyeon’s cheek.

“I was on the verge of doing that!” she said, and when she leaned in to press her full lips against Taeyeon’s cheek, the older girl couldn’t help but sigh. “I’ve been on the verge of doing it since I met you, to be honest…” She muttered, pressing her lips against Taeyeon’s skin again, just on the corner of her lips, her hand holding her face more firmly.

But in the end, it was Taeyeon who made the last move. Her free hand went to cup Jungah’s face, and with it she pulled her face closer to her until their lips were pressed together. Jungah gasped softly into the kiss, and Taeyeon felt like fire was running through her veins as their lips moved against each other’s. Jungah’s lips were even softer than they looked, and with them she kissed Taeyeon hungrily.

The younger girl’s fingers buried in Taeyeon’s hair as they kissed, and Taeyeon’s hand remained on Jungah’s face, pulling her closer to herself as if they weren’t close enough already.

It was only lips against lips, lips sucking on lips, lips caressing lips, sighs that fanned against lips - Taeyeon dared poke Jungah’s lower lips with her tongue, but she didn’t go further than that.

When they separated from each other, panting, lips wet and maybe a tiny bit swollen, the sky was starting to clear in the horizon - the light had changed, turning the sky from deep purple to a softer shade of violet, mixed with tones of periwinkle and grey. She could see Jungah’s face more clearly, could see her eyes looking at hers, moving fast from one to the other while she panted to recover her breath.

Her fingers were still buried in Taeyeon’s hair, and she stroked her scalp using her fingernails. The action made Taeyeon’s eyelids flutter and caused a sigh to escape her lips. “If you keep on doing that, you’ll have a hard time getting rid of me.”

“Why?” Jungah asked, amused, though she sounded just as out of breath as Taeyeon felt. “You like it?”

Taeyeon nodded, lowering her hand from the side of Jungah’s face to her shoulder.

“That’s good, then,” the younger girl commented as she stroked Taeyeon’s hair again. “I don’t want to get rid of you at all.”

Taeyeon pulled her into a second kiss, and this time she wasn’t afraid to push her tongue past Jungah’s lips. Jungah gasped, but the sound got lost against Taeyeon’s mouth.

When Jungah dropped Taeyeon off, the sun had already risen above the ocean and the streetlamps had already been turned off.

They kissed again before Taeyeon got off the truck and ironically wished each other goodnight after they parted, foreheads pressed together.

☁ ☁ ☁ ☁ ☁

Taeyeon knew that she shouldn’t ignore the fact that she had roughly two weeks left in Yeosu before she had to go back to Seoul, but it was inevitable.

She had gotten used to falling asleep to the sound of waves; to going around the ridiculously modern center of the city with Jinki (and Sunyoung, when she didn’t have to work) but going home to a modest, more traditional residential area in Dolsan island. She had gotten used to not having to go to work, even though she still tried to go out for a run around the neighborhood every day to keep herself relatively fit. She had gotten used to taking walks on the beach during the sunset before heading to The Wave.

But the most dangerous thing was that she had gotten used to Jungah.

Or rather, she had gotten used to craving, to needing her, because she had the feeling that she could never get enough of her.

After they kissed for the first time in the pick-up of Jungah’s truck it was like a dam was broken, and the week that followed was equal parts hell and heaven.

Taeyeon knew that she shouldn’t get attached to anyone or anything in Yeosu because she was leaving in a matter of days, but all her resolve got more and more destroyed with every text she got from Jungah. It had already been reduced to nothingness when they met each other at the bar that early evening, and although Taeyeon couldn’t stay for too long because she had dinner plans with Jinki and Sunyoung and she had to go back home quickly, she still let Jungah take her to the storage room and kiss her breath away between glossy bottles of liquor.

On Friday night, Taeyeon stayed until it was closing time again, but that was also the day she got to meet Kim Jongdae, Byun Baekhee’s husband. He was a bright man with an even brighter personality and a laughter that could be heard from outside the bar. He sang on a small, make-shift stage that they built in the bar on occasion, and Taeyeon was blown away by how good he was. It made sense that he worked as an elementary school teacher, like Jungah told Taeyeon while they watched him sing from the bar, their fingers secretly intertwined. Baekhee was on the first row, of course, though eventually she joined him on the stage.

He took Baekhee back home, so Jungah didn’t have to.

“Close well, okay?” Baekhee had told Jungah as she left, clinging to her husband’s arm. She had stopped working at some point in the night and had decided to have fun with Jongdae instead, singing and even drinking occasionally. Jungah had assured her she had no problem taking care of the closing that night (”and Taeyeon’s here, anyway, so it’s not like I’m all by myself”, she had said to Baekhee).

“I will, I will; I’ve been doing this for the past five years, I think I can do it by myself just fine, unnie,” Jungah reassured her boss and friend with a smile. Her hair was loose again, but she was still wearing her uniform. She patted Baekhee’s cheek and winked cheekily at her. “Go have fun, don’t make your Uber driver wait.”

“That I will,” Baekhee had told her, winking right back. “See you guys! Don’t go to sleep too late!”

Of course, Taeyeon had gotten up from the stool by the bar and gone up to Jungah as soon as Baekhee’s and Jongdae’s Uber had left. There was nobody else in the bar, and it was the first time in the entire night that they had gotten a moment for themselves.

They had stolen plenty of touches here and there, but since Friday nights were the busiest nights for the bar, Jungah hadn’t been able to kidnap Taeyeon and take her to the storage room to sneak a few kisses, not even for a few moments.

There was no will to fight the pull between them anymore, because since the moment they kissed it became clear that neither of them wanted to fight it. With every kiss that followed, it became more and more evident that they wanted that magnetism to consume them. Taeyeon found it hard to focus during the day because all she could think about was how good Jungah’s mouth felt on hers; how right it had felt to pin Jungah down on the pick-up of her truck and to run her hands over her clothed breasts; how she shouldn’t have chickened out and stopped herself that day because the rest of the week she had been on fire, craving Jungah every moment of the day.

They kissed hard in the middle of the bar, and at a certain point Taeyeon picked Jungah up by the thighs and sat her on one of the tables. She stood between her legs and held her close, her fingers digging into the younger girl’s flesh through the black fabric of her working trousers as her kisses moved south, to Jungah’s neck.

Jungah wrapped her legs around Taeyeon to keep her as close as possible, and she ran her hands aimlessly up and down Taeyeon’s back, stroking and pawing at her through the thin fabric of her shirt.

A sigh escaped her lips as Taeyeon’s mouth sucked on a spot on her neck, and her voice was a little breathier than usual when she spoke. “We should go somewhere else,” she said, letting her suggestion hang in the air for a few moments.

When Taeyeon replied, a few breaths later, she barely separated her lips from Jungah’s soft, tan skin.

“Where?”

Jungah pulled away, and Taeyeon saw her bite her lower lip before she smirked, moving a hand to Taeyeon’s hair just to push it away from her face.

“I know a place,” she said, her voice soft but just as flirty as the expression she was making. “Let me close up here first, and then come with me.”

Roughly half an hour later, Jungah had Taeyeon pinned down against the towel she had sprawled on the beach.

It was the same secret beach Jungah had taken her to the previous week, and it was just as empty as it had been then.

The sound of the waves was loud, and it drowned the sound of Taeyeon’s heart beating fast behind her ears. The night wasn’t cold at all, but maybe Taeyeon would have felt at least a little chilly without Jungah’s body pressing up against hers; hot like fire, even through the layers of clothes that were keeping her skin away from Taeyeon’s.

Eventually they peeled their clothing away, and the contact of skin against skin had Taeyeon’s mind spiraling with need. She wanted Jungah, and that feeling was only fueled by the realization that it had been way, way too long since the last time she had wanted someone as badly.

Jungah’s touches came and went, came and went - like the tide, she rose over Taeyeon and left no inch of her body unexplored, and Taeyeon felt like she could drown in her. When the younger girl’s fingers slipped between Taeyeon’s legs, she swallowed the pleasured sigh that threatened to spill from her lips, even though there was really no need to keep themselves quiet.

It was almost as if they were the only two people in the entire world, and for a dangerous moment Taeyeon imagined that she wouldn’t mind that. That she wouldn’t mind staying there where Jungah was; that she wouldn’t mind keeping her company every day, every night, never mind the fact that she had her job, her friends, and her family waiting in Seoul. Under the stars, suddenly Taeyeon didn’t feel tiny anymore. Not when Jungah touched her, kissed her, and whispered into her ear how beautiful, how good she was.

Taeyeon came with Jungah’s fingers deep inside of her, a soft sound of pleasure filtering between the crevices of where their mouths were pressed together. A couple of minutes later, Taeyeon made Jungah come with her head between her legs and utmost care that she wouldn’t get sand anywhere near her.

It had been a long time since Taeyeon ate another girl out, but that didn’t stop her. She wanted to make Jungah see fireworks behind her eyes, and the way the younger girl pulled her closer by the hair and whimpered into the night Taeyeon knew she had done a good job.

She shook the sand off her before she crawled next to Jungah on the towel once again, and they kissed again, and again, and again, until Taeyeon’s lips were nearly bruised and she couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore.

Jungah wrapped her arms around her and they pulled each other closer, their legs slotting together and falling into place perfectly, as if they were meant to be together.

Taeyeon had also entertained that thought.

That maybe, just maybe, Jungah and her were meant to stay together after everything was over.

That falling in love with her was as easy and dangerous as it was to dive into the middle of the sea.

That she would like taking a leap of faith into the water and do things differently; drown in the rush of adrenaline that only Jungah could give her, start everything over again, but with her lungs and her ears full of the salt water of Jungah’s voice.

☁ ☁ ☁ ☁ ☁

The first of their escapades wasn’t the last one, but the following week Taeyeon got to visit Jungah’s house.

She felt like a teenager, keeping herself as quiet as possible so they wouldn’t wake up Jungah’s grandparents who were sleeping just two doors down the hall, but daring to push the limits when Jungah joined her in the shower and went down on her the following morning.

It was incredible how much Jungah had grown on her as well as in her - there was no space left in her mind that she didn’t think about the beautiful girl that served tables in a bar in Yeosu, hundreds of kilometers away from Seoul, her home. Whenever she heard a song she liked, she wondered whether Jungah would also like it; whenever she sat down with Sunyoung to watch some TV drama, she imagined what Jungah was doing and if maybe she would like to watch shitty television together; whenever she stretched her muscles after running a few laps around the neighborhood, she couldn’t help but wonder what she would have done if she had gone through what Jungah suffered.

When she was only a few days from returning to Seoul, if she looked back she realized that the moments she had enjoyed the most had been the hours she had spent with the other girl.

Talking in the bar, kissing in the storage room during slower nights, having sex in Jungah’s old truck or at the secret beach, walking the younger girl’s poodles, and taking strolls through the city or down the beach every now and then - the month had flown by right before her eyes, and Taeyeon was scared that it would end because it would mean going back; returning to everything that had held her down and made her forget what it was like to feel.

Away from the city she had found herself crying again, laughing in earnest again, and she didn’t feel ready to go away from all that.

☁ ☁ ☁ ☁ ☁

“I like someone,” she told Jinki one day when they were having lunch together in a restaurant near the café he owned. It was a beautiful day - blue skies that stretched for miles and miles, the only clouds in the sky white and puffy like balls of cotton. The previous days there had been a strong rainstorm, so it was no wonder that the streets and restaurants were now equally flooded with tourists and locals. It was her last Saturday in Yeosu, and the bus that would take her back to Seoul was due to depart on Wednesday.

“The girl from The Wave, right?” Jinki had asked, a gentle though slightly cheeky smile on his face. “I knew you had the hots for her, or something.”

“It’s not just that,” Taeyeon laughed, flicking the straw of her Sprite in Jinki’s direction, successfully sprinkling him with a few drops. “I think I like her, as in… Really like her.”

“But that’s good, isn’t it…?” her friend sad, “I mean, do you feel good?”

“I do,” Taeyeon replied, “I feel fantastic. Better than I’ve felt since everything happened!”

“So, what’s the problem?”

Taeyeon sighed softly. “That’s the problem. I have no idea where I’m supposed to go from here. I have never… Fallen so quickly, for anything or anyone. What if it’s just my mind playing tricks on me, making me believe that I really like this person because I was so hurt after the break-up that I would fall for the first attractive person that gave me a little bit of attention?”

Jinki hummed, frowning thoughtfully as he looked down at his bibimbap. “That is a possibility, I guess… I mean, I’m not judging you, but it really hasn’t been that long since you and Minho broke up.”

Taeyeon nearly froze at the sound of Minho’s name.

She hadn’t heard it in a while, and even though she had thought about him sometimes here and there, hearing the sound of his name felt weird. Almost as if pronouncing it would summon him. She hadn’t heard anything from him in the past month, but maybe that was because she had finally managed to block his number and delete him from every social network she had.

“Which I still can’t understand…” Jinki went on, seemingly unaware of the effect Minho’s name had had on Taeyeon. “I mean, Minho hasn’t told me much, but you have said nothing to me at all.”

“What has he said?” Taeyeon asked, unable to control her curiosity.

Jinki looked at her, then, probably assessing whether he should tell her or not.

“Well,” he started, “he said it had been his fault. That’s pretty much the only thing he told me. I didn’t want to push him to tell me anything, just like I don’t want to push you…”

“Hm,” she hummed. At least he had been honest with Jinki, which was something. Taeyeon thought she could tell Jinki what had really happened and spew as much venom about Minho as she wanted, but she didn’t really want to do that. Something stopped her from telling Jinki the entire story, but then again, didn’t he deserve to know? He was her friend, after all, no matter that he was also Minho’s friend. “Well, he didn’t lie…”

Before Jinki could make another question, Taeyeon told him the truth.

She didn’t elaborate much - she just told him about what had happened and how it had been Kibum who had found out in the first place, but some details she kept to herself.

This time around, she didn’t cry, but Jinki held her hand over the table regardless and stroked it soothingly. He seemed shocked, and he didn’t try to pry for more information. He thanked Taeyeon for telling him, apologized for making her remember, and even reassured her, telling her that if she wanted or needed to stay in Yeosu for a longer time, he had no problem letting her use one of the two spare bedrooms.

“Honestly, I think both Sunyoung and I have really enjoyed the company,” Jinki told her, smiling. “If you need more time away from Seoul, you have a home here.”

Taeyeon returned the smile. She really appreciated Jinki’s hospitality, but she had no intention of prolonging her stay.

If she stopped to think about Jungah, there was no doubt that she would want to stay in Yeosu for as long as it would take them to figure out what they could make of themselves. She had gotten used to seeing her every day for the past couple of weeks, and she had grown to like her so much that Taeyeon was sure she would miss the other girl awfully once she was back in Seoul; back to the hectic life she had pressed pause on almost one month ago.

But she couldn’t stay - not when there was Kibum and the academy waiting for her, not when her own legs and arms were begging her to dance again, not when her mother had been able to get in contact with a real estate agent that could help her get a good apartment in Itaewon, not too far away from the subway station. Perhaps Kibum wouldn’t have a problem with letting her take a couple of extra weeks, but Taeyeon did have a problem with asking much from people and feeling like she was abusing their trust. Taeyeon was nothing if not responsible, and now that she had gotten back on her feet it as better for her to head back.

“Oppa, I would stay here for months if I could,” Taeyeon started, Jungah’s golden smile flashing through her mind, “but it’s not realistic to do that. This month away from home has been great, and it has helped me so much, but I can’t avoid my responsibilities any longer. Maybe one month is not enough to get over everything that happened, but it’s a start,” she said, even though half of her brain was telling her that there was nothing wrong with just taking a few more weeks off, that Kibum wouldn’t mind, that she could use that time to be with Jungah until they figured out something. That maybe the new beginning she was looking for wasn’t in Seoul, but in Yeosu. “It’s not that I don’t want to stay, but perhaps it’s better if I return to the real world now that I’m doing better… Cause I’m afraid that if I do stay longer I really won’t want to leave…”

Jinki hummed in understanding. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. It was just an invitation... It’s not like we are thousands of kilometers away from each other, or something. Korea isn’t that big - you can come visit again whenever you want, maybe for a weekend…”

“Yeah, of course!” Taeyeon said, smiling at her friend. “After knowing the kind of place where you live, you can’t expect me to let you keep it all to yourself. Don’t worry, you will definitely see me again around here.”

☁ ☁ ☁ ☁ ☁

Jungah’s bedroom wasn’t very big, but it was comfortable, warm; lived in, and maybe a little bit messy. Her bed was pushed against the corner of the room, and out of all the times Taeyeon had been there, she had never once seen it made. There was a yellow plastic star-shaped lamp hanging from a nail a few centimeters over the headboard of the headboard, which Jungah preferred to the bright white ceiling light even though she was aware it was a children’s night lamp - the light was a soft glow of gold that felt as warm as it looked, and they could never be bothered to turn it off when they found themselves tangled in each other and on Jungah’s bed.

“At what time does your bus leave on Wednesday?” Jungah asked, her voice a soft whisper that matched the light of her star-shaped lamp and fanned against Taeyeon’s forehead. They were lying on her bed, blankets pushed as far as possible because it was way too hot between their bodies. Taeyeon had no idea what time it was, but she thought she could hear a clock ticking on Jungah’s kitchen. All she knew was that it was way past four in the morning, but she wasn’t even slightly sleepy.

“At one in the afternoon,” Taeyeon answered after licking her lips. One of Jungah’s bare feet was rubbing up and down the back of her calf. It was way too intimate, way too close, and Taeyeon wished she never had to pull away. “I should get to Seoul by six thirty, or seven, depending on the traffic…”

Jungah hummed, her hand squeezing Taeyeon’s waist gently. When Taeyeon looked up at her, she saw that her eyes were open, though barely - her pupils could hardly be seen under her heavy, droopy eyelids and her long lashes. Taeyeon could tell that she was doing an effort not to fall asleep. She was probably tired after working, driving Baekhee home, and then taking Taeyeon back to her house with her, but she still refused to sleep.

Taeyeon took her hand to the side of Jungah’s face, and the younger girl’s eyes closed at the touch.

“You need to go to sleep,” she told her, gently. “I’ll still be here tomorrow.”

“But not the day after that,” Jungah lamented as she leaned into Taeyeon’s touch, very much like a cuddly puppy.

Taeyeon stayed silent at that. She didn’t know what to say, so she just went on running her fingers over Jungah’s face, hoping her touches would lull the other girl to sleep while a knot grew in her throat and made it harder for her to breathe.

“I never saw you dance,” Jungah spoke again after a few moments. Her voice was still a soft whisper and her eyes were still closed, but she was obviously not thinking about going to sleep any time soon. Taeyeon smiled at that.

“You’re acting like we’ll never see each other again,” she said. “Relax, I’m pretty sure we’ll see each other again sooner than you think.”

“Maybe, maybe not…” the younger girl muttered, and she sighed, shaking her head to get Taeyeon to remove her hand from over her face. She opened her eyes and looked at her, then. “Taeyeon-ah, am I supposed to wait for you?”

Taeyeon frowned a little bit in confusion.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I like you,” Jungah answered, her voice serene even though there was a hint of uncertainty in it. “But that I’m a little bit lost… I won’t ask you to stay because I know how important it is that you go back and get your life going again, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want you to.” She paused to take a breath and lick her lips. “I guess… I guess what I’m trying to ask is whether you think there is a future for us, because the way I see it, there is not.”

Jungah looked straight into her eyes when she spoke, her own eyes glimmering with soft yellow reflections. Her brow was furrowed, and her lower lip was slightly jutted.

Her words were harsh, and Taeyeon almost cringed at them, but it was painfully obvious that Jungah had also had a hard time pronouncing them. She told her she liked her, a feeling Taeyeon knew about and that she very much returned, but Jungah had already gone through enough to know that not because you like someone or you want something, things are going to work your way.

Taeyeon supposed Jungah and her were never even supposed to get so attached to each other in first place.

But despite everything, she liked Jungah, she cared about Jungah, and she still felt like she couldn’t get enough of Jungah.

“It’s going to be difficult,” Taeyeon answered, finally, and perhaps she was being selfish, clinging onto Jungah even though she was about to leave. Or rather, maybe she was being a coward - keeping the other girl to herself even in the distance so that when things get difficult and the miles between become a chore, breaking things up through a phone call or a text message won’t hurt as much as it would hurt her to tell it to Jungah’s face, in Jungah’s bed, under the star shaped night light that shone above their heads. “But I think there might be a future if we try.”

Jungah sighed softly, shaking her head. “It’s what I’d like to think.”

“But what’s stopping you?” Taeyeon inquired.

“Everything,” Jungah replied, promptly. “You only came here to clear your head, of course you weren’t expecting to get involved with anyone, but it happened, and it was amazing. But now time’s up and you have to go back home. Seeing you again in the future would be awesome, but I don’t want to have to wait for whenever you have the time to visit again in the middle of your busy life, and I don’t think that spending a couple of weeks with you gives me the right to demand visits.”

“You can visit me in Seoul, too,” Taeyeon defended, though she saw where Jungah was going. The other girl didn’t seem sleepy anymore - she just seemed tired, almost defeated. She had a point, Taeyeon supposed - she knew she would want and miss Jungah, but she wasn’t sure if the time they had spent together was enough to make her question her entire existence. They had had fun, and loving the other girl even for a few weeks had been an eye-opening and heart-opening experience that wasn’t really supposed to happen. But it had happened, and for that Taeyeon would always be grateful. “No, you know what? I think I get it…”

Forcing a future into something so serendipitous would poison the entire memory.

Jungah tilted her head at her.

“Meeting you is probably the best thing that has happened to me in a long, long time,” Taeyeon said, and Jungah’s lips finally curved into an honest although tired smile. “You’re strong, you’re funny, you’re beautiful, you’re hardworking, you’re cute as fuck - if the timing was right, God knows I’d never let you go.”

The younger girl almost whimpered at Taeyeon’s words, and she pulled her closer using one of her feet, which was hooked around Taeyeon’s leg.

“So you agree with me, then,” Jungah asked, her face buried against Taeyeon’s neck. “It’s not that you and I aren’t right together. It’s just that the way things are right now are not ideal. It would be rushed, stupid, and trying something out could do more harm than good.”

Taeyeon hummed, nuzzling Jungah’s forehead. “Yes. Though it’s not that easy.”

“Of course it’s not - holding you like this, you think I wanna let you go anywhere?” Jungah asked with a chuckle to her voice.

“But this won’t be the last time we see each other,” Taeyeon assured her, not for the first time. “Whoever’s behind the great scheme of things wouldn’t be that stupid to make this the only chance we get to be with each other.”

Jungah nodded, and the tip of her nose rubbed against Taeyeon’s skin, tickling her a little bit.

“Maybe a few months from now, or in a year or so, we can try again,” she said, her voice muffled. “Though in the meantime, if you do happen to drop by for a visit, I will get very angry if you don’t pay us a visit at The Wave.”

Taeyeon chuckled, and she tangled her fingers in Jungah’s soft black hair. “Are you kidding me? The Wave and your little beach are my favorite places in Yeosu. Of course I’ll visit, don’t worry.”

“Good,” Jungah said, and it was resolute.

It was true.

☁ ☁ ☁ ☁ ☁

Jinki took the morning off to take Taeyeon to the bus station, but when she saw a certain old pick-up truck parked in the bus station’s parking lot she knew Jinki wouldn’t be the only person hugging her goodbye before she got on the bus - no matter that she thought Jungah and her had had a good enough farewell in the early morning, with a bone crushing hug and a lip searing kiss that almost made Taeyeon melt in the passenger seat of her truck.

Jungah and Baekhee were inside the station, looking expectant and a little bit lost until they spotted Taeyeon.

Jungah let Baekhee go first, and the redhead wasn’t so much about crushing Taeyeon with a hug as she was about pressing noisy kisses to her cheek and ruffling her hair while sporting a grin worth a billion won.

“It was awesome meeting you, Taeyeon,” Baekhee said. “Now you’ll go back to be a Full-Time City Girl, but don’t you dare forget that you got a little family in a little bar in little old Yeosu, okay? Pay us a visit when you’re around. If I ever go to Seoul I’ll ring you up for sure.”

“Obviously,” Taeyeon assured Baekhee, smiling just as brightly at her. “Thank you for everything, unnie.”

Baekhee pulled away after throwing a cheesy wink at Taeyeon, and then the redhead moved aside to give space for Jungah to say goodbye. Taeyeon noticed that all the bravado that the younger girl had sported on the days before her departure was gone.

Instead she seemed shy, hesitant, and unsure of what to do. She smiled at Taeyeon, and even if it did reach her eyes, it was still a sad smile, where the corners of her lips quivered a little too much.

Still, she pleasantly surprised Taeyeon when she dared to take her hand.

“You’re gonna be okay in the big city again, right? It’s not gonna be too much after an entire month of frolicking in the lovely south without a care in the world?” She asked, her voice small but big enough for Taeyeon to hear. Taeyeon returned her smile as she squeezed her hand gently.

“I’ll be perfectly fine. I’m a city rat,” she joked, and Jungah cracked a chuckle at that. “No, but really, I think the time here… The time with you, and Jinki, and Sunyoung, and Baekhee, and everyone… It really helped me. After all of this I am definitely going to be okay.”

Jungah nodded.

“Good, I’m glad to hear that,” she said as she intertwined their fingers. “You deserve to be okay.”

“You, too,” Taeyeon told her, honestly, her heart thumping rapidly in her chest. “I’ll miss you, though. Even if we reached some sort of agreement, don’t think I’m not going to miss you.”

The younger girl smiled at that.

“Good. I’ll miss you too,” she confessed, and then her smile grew a little bit, something cheeky sparkling in her eyes. “Since your birthday’s coming up in a few days and you won’t be around, I’m gonna give you a birthday present - it’s something you can remember me by,” she told her, and Taeyeon gasped.

“A birthday present? Oh, my god, Jungah, it’s not necessary-,” she was just saying that to be polite, of course. The truth was that she wanted nothing more than a present from Jungah, even though she didn’t think she needed a token from her in order to remember her.

“Shut up, Tae,” she told her, though it was with a sweet voice and a smile, so that Taeyeon didn’t really take offense on her words. Instead, she just laughed as Jungah reached for something inside of the pocket of her hoodie. “You just gotta promise me that you won’t lose it, because I would never let you live if you did.”

“Wow, it sounds like it’s going to be something serious,” Taeyeon commented, but she nodded, stretching her palm out in front of Jungah impatiently. “I promise.”

Jungah looked down at her, then, as she retrieved her fist from the inside of her hoodie. “You really promise?” She asked.

Taeyeon nodded again as she replied, “I really promise.”

After that, Jungah smiled as she put her closed fist above Taeyeon’s open palm. When she opened her hand, something small metallic landed on the older girl’s hand.

It was the ballerina pendant, but instead of an old piece of strap, now it was connected to a thin silver keychain that appeared to be infinite times more resistant than the old material.

Taeyeon’s jaw fell and she looked up at Jungah.

“Jungah, I cannot let you give this to me-! It’s too valuable for you-!” She started, though her own fist clenched protectively around the metal, which was warm after spending a long time in Jungah’s pocket.

The younger girl chuckled. “I never said that it was valuable for me - I used to dance, yes, but this pendant I used to wear because I thought it was pretty. But you seemed to love it a lot… So I want you to have it. And honestly, now that you have it, it’s worth grew a thousand times more. If you want, it can be the promise that we will see each other again.”

Taeyeon bit her lip, though she couldn’t help but smile. She was really touched - the pendant was beautiful, really, and she couldn’t wait to wear it to class even though what she taught was far from ballet. She couldn’t wait to carry a piece of Jungah with her wherever she went - that way, she knew for sure, she would never forget her, and she would never forget that they had yet to see each other in the future, when Taeyeon wasn’t too caught up in everything that was going on in her life.

They would have time.

“Thank you,” Taeyeon told her, from the bottom of her heart, and she pulled her into a tight hug, throwing her arms around the taller girl’s neck. “Thank you so, so much! I will wear it every day.”

“You better!” Jungah warned her jokingly, nuzzling the side of her face, nevermind that they were in public.

They didn’t kiss each other on the lips, but they took turns planting sweet, soft kisses on each other’s forehead. Jungah had to crouch a little bit to receive hers, though, which made Taeyeon laugh.

“Who’s picking you up in Seoul?” Jinki asked her, then, after they had put her stuff in the trunk of the bus.

“Kibum, of course,” Taeyeon replied. “I think he’s missed me more than my mom.”

Jinki chuckled at that. “Well, I guess he has been working double during this month…”

“Oh, shut up, oppa,” Taeyeon laughed, and Jinki did too as she pulled her into a hug.

Like the one he gave her when she first got off the bus, just one month ago, it was just as warm as the sun. The weather was even warmer as summer was now in full swing, and Taeyeon had no doubt that she was going to feel like she was cooking herself in the humid heat of Seoul. The fresher weather of the coast was yet another thing in the long list of things she would miss.

“Thank you for everything,” Taeyeon told him as they hugged each other.

“Oh, you don’t need to thank me, Tae,” he replied, a smile also evident in his voice. “Have a safe trip and take care of yourself there.”

“Thank you,” Taeyeon repeated, and she even pressed a kiss to his cheek in farewell before she pulled away completely. “Hug Sunyoung again for me.”

“Of course,” Jinki assured her as she stepped into the bus. “Bye bye!”

Taeyeon waved at him one last time, a grin on her face, before she went inside.

☁ ☁ ☁ ☁ ☁

One time, Taeyeon’s family went to Jeju Island when she and her brother were little.

It was the first time she saw the ocean up close and she was absolutely marveled by how it pretty it was, glistening like diamonds under the afternoon sun.

She remembers chasing after the retreating waves on the shore while she held onto Taesun’s bigger hand, her feet sinking in the sand and leaving tiny prints behind. She had had so much fun seeing the ocean climb up the beach again, though she had almost had the impression that the ocean’s sole purpose was to erase the offending footprints from the sand and swallow them the way it had also swallowed the sandcastle they had built together.

All it took was a few motions over the course of one night for it to completely destroy what Taeyeon and her brother had spent two hours working on with the pails and buckets their parents had gotten them.

They built a second, less magnificent one the day after because they knew it wouldn’t survive the night, and on the third day, when they once again arrived to a beach devoid of footsteps and sandcastles, they decided to drop the pails and buckets and just run in and out of the water and splash around.

As she sat in the bus that was taking her home, Taeyeon felt little reminded of that incident of her childhood, except that the footsteps and the sandcastles were actually the heavy feelings she had carried with her in her broken heart when she had first arrived. Instead of sand, though, they seemed to be made of stone with how heavy and resilient they were, which made it impossible for the ocean to swallow them over night.

However, that didn’t mean that her trip had been for naught - the waves of the ocean had definitely moved the earth under Taeyeon’s feet with their easy, steady come and go, and in their collision against the stone castles they had slowly but surely started to give in.

She unconsciously took her hand to the metallic ballerina that was hanging from a chain around her neck and she twirled it around a few times, a smile growing in her lips.

Someday, when the sandcastles were completely swallowed by the sea, Taeyeon knew they would get another chance.