nine months 2/2 {ga-in/uee}
nine months (that i have waited for you in the snow
ga-in/uee
future!au ; r
based on the book matched and the book the giver mixed into one fic ; written for the femmebigbang
part one
part one
Insu stays for the weekend before he has to leave back for the sixth province.
The dinner at home is awkward with my father’s intense glare and my mother’s soft worrying over him. I try to make up for it by taking him out on a walk before curfew, and we walk, hand in hand, down the street and back. His pale skin glimmers under the streetlights, and I blush whenever he turns down and smiles at me. Something with his eyes makes me feel like he’s only looking at me and my heart skips. My health monitor asks if something is wrong and he laughs into the air when I grow redder.
“Yujin-ah, you’re so adorable,” he says, wrapping his arm around my own. I squirm self-consciously, so he adds, “And I really like that.”
The sun has set by now, and nighttime covers us with its cold blanket. Time moves slowly, but summer is coming up soon, and that means more time off, more time with Insu, and I imagine spending weeks on end at his place if parents allow it, or spending days doing summery activities in the third province, where there are mountains and we could go hiking. My hands shake with anticipation.
“You said we needed to talk,” I remind him. I know that it was a bit early to be bringing up such things, but I was curious. My family had noticed how angered I was the night of the letter. At the time, I had thought that I had the right to. I still, in the back of my mind somewhere, believed that.
“You’re in an athletic high school, correct?”
“Pardon?” I ask, completely startled by the question itself. He repeats himself, a small smirk on his lips. I slowly realize how much of a melting pot that smile can be.
“Yeah,” I respond, my eyes wide with curiosity. He digs his hands into his jean pockets and smiles.
“Are you a fast runner, then?” Insu asks, brushing his short, black hair from his piercing eyes. I nod. He smiles to himself, like he’s thinking of a joke between him and someone else, and I watch as he takes a step towards me. He pokes my sides, his girly fingers digging into my sides, before running away as fast as he can.
“Yah!” I scream, pumping my fists as fast as I possibly can, trying my best to catch him. He ends up tripping up in the road, and I grab onto his arm, flipping him around to catch a wide smile on his face. He pulls me into a hug, and I accept willingly, the aftershocks leaving my body through my fingertips. We’re laughing until the curfew bell rings and we’re forced to walk back home.
“I hope that my father isn’t that bad,” I mumble, heading up the porch steps, “I hope you don’t feel like leaving or whatever because of his domineering presence.”
Insu shrugs, “I’ve dealt with worse, I can promise you that.” I don’t ask him about the full truth on that statement.
I grab onto the doorknob, ready to walk through the door, when Insu grabs my wrist and pulls me around again.
“Where’s my goodnight kiss?” he asks, and before I can reply, he presses his lips against mine.
They’re so soft.
**
The second day he’s here, I bring him to the only big green space in town, the middle of our little brook where families like to sit a chat, or kids like to run around and dare to scoop pennies and dimes out from the fountains that decorate the gray and white pathways. It’s peaceful, very peaceful, with the sounds of nature, from the grass crackling underneath footsteps to the soft trickling of water.
“Why did you bring me here?” Insu asks. His pale skin shines in the summer’s light, his dark hair shining underneath the sun that leaks between the trees. He looks uncomfortable, out in the open like this, covered only by the trees, his eyes darting around to see if anyone is watching. I wish to reach out to him, to grab his hand and promise that everything will be alright; but it isn’t nighttime and people can see.
I shrug, the corners of my lips turning up a little. “I just thought that you would prefer it here than stuffed up with my father. You’re leaving tomorrow, right? I wanted to show you as much of our town as possible before you had to leave… I’m sorry, we can go back if you really want to…”
I start to turn back around when he grabs onto my wrist and flips me back around, a bright smile on his lips. I hadn’t noticed how pretty his teeth were until this moment, when I see the bright contrast, and I wonder, yet again, if there is anything at all that makes him imperfect. From what I have seen, it doesn’t seem to be like it.
“No, Yujin-ah, I really like it here,” he says, sliding his fingers down from my wrist to my hand, and we hold them together, my lips pulling into a wider smile. I feel foolish suddenly and keep my head down, my cheeks turning a tint of red. “Yujin-ah?” he asks.
I don’t look up, but soon, I feel the softness of his fingers brushing against my chin, and he pulls my head up. The memory of last night’s kiss runs past my eyes like a movie; it was spectacular, that was the truth. Insu leans in, so close that I’m sure that our noses are brushing in, and turns his head just a little bit, so that our lips can mesh beautifully. My free hand rises up and goes to his neck, my fingernails barely scraping the skin, before I put my hand down flat onto his neck.
He pecks me on the cheek before we pull away, and I wish that he didn’t have to leave for tomorrow. He swings back on his heels, his hands finding home in his pockets. Insu raises his eyebrow and cocks his head to the side, and we continue our walk through the park. Sometimes, when we’re walking, my hand brushes his arms, and I blush. I know he’s noticing because each time this happens, a small chuckle leaves his lips.
**
The next morning I stand on the platform with my father and Insu, waiting for the train to come and whisk him away, back to the sixth province. We all look a bit stupid, but at least I am not wearing something skimpy-the clothing is appropriate and I’m thankful for the second day of sunshine that has been brought upon us. He still wears a coat, though, ready for the harsh winter that will meet him when he steps out of the train, back home.
I stand way too close to him, and my father keeps his distance, thank god. I smile awkwardly, leaning back and forth on my toes. My curiosity has never been one of my pros, and I think of this fact now. This whole weekend, I had been wondering, waiting for when Insu would eventually tell me what it was exactly that he was so desperate to tell me at first, and then so casual to talk about, now. There were many occasions that I had almost shaken it out of him, before remembering normal interactions between matches. Matches didn’t fight.
“So,” I say, pulling the word apart and letting it roll of my tongue. His smile appears again, and I seriously wish that I could wipe that grin off of his face-but I love it way too much to really hit him that hard for it. He cocks his head to the side and I roll my eyes, pushing his shoulder just a little bit, to prove some sort of point (that point, I’m still not that sure about, of course). “Come on, just tell me!” I pout, and that seems to work.
He looks up, to see that the train has appeared, fading into view from the distance. He grabs my wrist, kisses my cheek, and puts his lips right next to my ear. “I’m a girl. Son Ga-in.”
My eyes widen and my world breaks in two. Before I can do anything, that smirk has mounted the train and is about to disappear to better places. And unfortunately, I don’t have a ticket.
**
My match was a girl. I had a trouble believing that that was the truth, to be honest. The Capitale made sure that everyone was paired up accordingly, and that nature supported it. Why did they pair me up with a girl, then? Insu. Ga-in. Boy. Girl. There was such a big difference, but why was I the only one that really knew the difference between Son Insu and Son Ga-in, now. Ga-in made a pretty believable boy. She looked, acted, and even felt like a boy. I didn’t get it.
Her hands.
Suddenly the fact jumped to my head. Her hands were far too small, far too feminine to ever belong to a man. That had jumped to my attention when we first held hands, and then every time afterwards. I had always, always, considered them as a red flag, but had quickly pushed it aside. This was the Capitale. The Capitale was supposed to be right-they were always right.
So what was wrong with this scene, then? Why did it end up being like this? Why was a matched up with a girl? This wasn’t natural. Sure, Ga-in could pass as a pretty good boy… Had the Capitale forced her to be a guy? So that she could be matched up with me, a girl, too? Was the scales tipped?
“The sixth province,” I breathed. Did it have something to do with the Winternorth people? Was something bad going on over there, something that I didn’t have the slightest clue about? Was Ga-in a Winternorth, smuggled into here by some spy or something, and forced with a male identity not to get caught?
I pressed my face down into the mattress, forcing myself to let go of all the questions that flocked around my head like birds. I just needed some rest, I told myself. When I woke up in the morning, I could easily send a letter to Insu before I went to school, just asking for some clarification. To be perfectly honest, it could have just been a little game, a joke that he was playing to make fun of me or something. I tried to laugh but nothing came out but the worry that was clogging up in my throat.
I just wanted to sleep, I told myself. I had spent all day worrying, and in the process worrying my family, who kept on giving me odd looks when I huffed all around the house, not sure how to spend the rest of my Sunday. They suggested going for a walk, or calling up with Jinah, all suggestions that I politely turned down.
I didn’t want to leave the house; I wanted to call Insu and get to the bottom of this. That, unfortunately, did not seem possible. He was probably on the train, minding his own business, maybe reading a book or listening to some music, squished between others on the train. Calls weren’t possible on trains, they moved that fast.
I finally went downstairs on the training machine and started running until I felt like my lungs would explode. I closed my eyes and pretended that I was running towards the truth-but every time that I had thought that I had reached the end, there was just another corner, and I would be running for another few minutes. The machine eventually stopped and told me to go to bed.
I tried to drift off to sleep, my eyes dreaming of Insu’s (or Ga-in’s) dazzling face and features. What would it be like between us now? Would it really be the same? Would it be ok? I had a trouble believing it; even that Insu was a girl. But his hands, I told myself.
I fell asleep smiling.
**
“So, how was your first encounter with the third kind?” Cheolyong asks me when we’re spending our free time next Saturday playing games, mainly card games that don’t require that much attention or skill. We’ve both decided that we don’t’ feel like thinking tonight; our minds fogged with afternoons spent with our other-halves.
I had tried working over the course of the week, to keep my school marks up, but I had been unable to concentrate because of Ga-in/Insu, and so, spent most of my time wishing that Jinah was in my class, and not in who-knows-where, now. And Cheolyong had gone off to the outlands of the province to meet Jiyeon, his match, and had been approved a week to spend with her. That meant that I was left without my two best friends for the course of the week.
I laugh, “He was fine, thank you very much. It wasn’t like he was some type of mutant or anything.” He rolls his eyes, that same look I remember seeing on his face when we were younger pasted onto his lips. “I got airmail from him recently, actually. Two weeks from now, and I will be going to the sixth province, to meet him.” I wink, throwing some of my brown hair over my shoulder. Cheolyong laughs. “How was yours?”
Cheolyong sighs. “She’s fine, very fine. But she’s very self-conscious. She kept on making sure that she looked ok. I doubt I’ll ever be as comfortable with her as I am with you, Yujin.” I look down at my hand, placing a card down above the pile-beating his next card. He sets another down, as do I, before I finally speak up.
“But you’re a very comforting person, Cheolyong, I’m sure that’s why you were matched with her. I’m sure that you’ll eventually make her turn over and show her more confident side. I promise. Opposites attract, right?” I smile to try to comfort him, and he smiles back.
We finish the game, grab our coats, and walk home together.
“We are pretty comfortable together, aren’t we?” I ask, a small smirk placed upon my lips, my hands in my pockets and my eyes watching the sky above us.
“It’s to be expected from a group of kids that have been together since they were very young,” Cheolyong answers, his steps in tune with mine, and I know that he is watching the sky with me. Silence falls like the sun and we’re comforted only by each other’s footsteps.
“Jiyeon is coming next week. I would love it if you met up with her,” Cheolyong says, and I look up from the heavens to turn him and I smile whole-heartedly. I had only heard little things about Jiyeon, and had seen her face on the screen during the Matching ceremony, but she was very pretty, and everything that I had heard about her from Cheolyong, which, unfortunately, wasn’t that much, seemed to be positive.
I nodded. “Of course, I would love to meet her, too!” I draped my arm around his shoulders and punched his ribcage. “I need to know who’s stealing my Cheolyong away from me.” We laugh.
“You sound so much like your father right now, Yujin,” he points out, and I hit his side once more, until he pretends to double over in pain, and I pretend to be calling for help, until Cheolyong shushes me with his hand and we run out of the streetlights until the only sounds are our footsteps and the curfew bell.
**
She is beautiful. Jiyeon is so beautiful that it’s almost annoying.
Cheolyong looks like he loves her when he looks into her eyes, and I instantly feel jealous. Jinah has been sending me messages in hope to brighten up my mood, but nothing that she could ever send would make me feel happy about myself at that moment-the moment where Cheolyong and Jiyeon walked in, hand in hand, flustered face turned to flustered face, smile to gorgeous smile.
The whole dinner is awkward, but I see the insecurities that Cheolyong spoke about. She turns around often in her seat, checks her makeup bag and her mirror, and keeps her eyes on her plate unless she’s brought into the conversation. I’m the third wheel-I shouldn’t talk that much. The conversation is therefore awkward, filled with small jokes about the people around us, and our matches. If Insu is ever brought up, Jiyeon seems to be much more interested.
I feel defensive when talking about Insu, so I try to answer the vaguest of answers as possible with the shortest answers. I’m not trying to be rude, I scream at Cheolyong with my eyes when Cheolyong glares at me during the yes-and-no questionnaire, but seeing as Insu had only airmailed me twice since our last meeting, I was still very on the fence about everything. And with no one to talk to it about, I felt like any moment we talked about it, I would eventually spill the truth: that Insu may be a girl.
I had wanted to tell either Jinah or Cheolyong about this for so long, but had never been able to find time to really come clean. Of course I wanted to say the truth! If I could, I would have earlier, but I couldn’t. And somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that Insu wouldn’t want me blabbing my mouth about something that was obviously so private that it had taken so long for him to admit it to me.
Great job back there, reads the text that Cheolyong sends a few minutes after, when I’m on my way home from the restaurant. I bite down in my tongue and stuff my phone into my pocket, keeping up my pace to make sure that I don’t text something bad or call him up and start screaming at him. I pump my fists, walking as fast as I possibly can until I’m running, sprinting down to my house.
I sprint up the stairs and hide in my room. I pull out my phone, hide my head in my knees, and dial up Insu’s number before I realize what I’m doing. It’s probably five-thirty o’clock over there, I calculate in my head. I count the number of rings before I finally hear his voice.
“Yujin-ah?” Insu answers.
I sob, as much as I possibly can, until I’m positive that my eyes will never return to their natural colour. I just need to cry so much, I need to talk as honestly as possible.
“My best friend, h-he brought… he b-brought his match and asked me to eat with them tonight! S-She’s so be…beautiful and I feel so u-ugly whenever I’m around her. It’s those types of girls that I really hate. And she’s so compatible with Cheolyong! It’s just the way that they look into each other’s eyes that make me feel so stupid…” I don’t notice how much I’m rambling until laughing cuts me off.
“Why do you care about your best friend’s match, Yujin-ah?” Insu asks, and my knees slide down, my calves hitting the wooden floor. “You’re not matched with him, so why should it matter, who he’s paired up with? You know what, Yujin-ah? This match may be pretty, but she isn’t as pretty as you are. Yujin, I love you.”
“But you’re a girl,” I mumble, “But matches are supposed to be with a boy and a girl…”
Insu laughs, “The Capitale obviously wanted us to be matched. Think of it like that.”
“But Insu-”
“My name is Son Ga-in. Please call me that instead,” Ga-in corrects and I nod, like a scolded child. She sighs when I don’t reply. “Yujin-ah, if it really annoys you so much, I can pass as a boy, for the rest of eternity, and be Son Insu for you. But I had thought that you were different, especially when we went to the park together that one day, together. I hadn’t thought I was going to ever tell you; state myself as sterile. But I trusted you, and I still trust you. I’m sorry if I perceived it wrong.”
I shake my head. “N-no! Please, I would never want you to not trust me.” I can see the smile on her face through the receiver, the way that her lips would turn, the way she would look at me. I feel suddenly relieved by that.
“You’re still coming over in a week, yes?” She asks, and I hum yes. She laughs. “That’s great. I apologize, but I have to go.”
“Bye, Ga-in,” I mumble, and there’s a pause.
“Bye, Yujin-ah. I love you.”
**
Sunday is work, and I am slowly starting to despise work. Nothing keeps me entertained, working my fingers through the keyboard, through the mouse clicks, but I try my best to stay concentrated, to get better marks. The day my job will be elected is dawning on my quickly, and I bite my tongue and shake my head each time my employer or Jooyeon reminds me of it. It feels awkward, knowing that soon, you’ll be moving up.
“You’d be a great matcher,” my employer tells me, “Do you want me to put in a good word for you?”
I shake my head, smiling. “That isn’t necessary,” I reply as politely as I possibly can. He shakes his head and walks off.
Ga-in and I were a mistake. I would hate to be the one making the mistake.
**
It’s more than ten degrees colder from my home to Ga-in, and I sit, shivering in my seat. The Officials had had to send me with some warmer clothing when they had learned that I would be spending the week in the sixth province with Insu, to get closer to each other. It was one of the last few weeks of school, so if I studied for test week when I was with Insu every night, I would be fine, they advised.
I tucked away my mathematics text book, tucking into my hand bag. My suitcases sat above me in a cubby, locked up safely by a password that I played over and over in my head. When I had reached my stop, which just happened to be the last stop, all I had to do was punch in the numbers and then slide out my articles, and step off of the train.
It was very quiet, with barely any people left. When I had first walked onto the train, the whole carriage was filled with people, and so finding a spot was difficult. But slowly, people started getting off, walking off at certain provinces, and I had now passes the third, second and seventh, headed straight for the sixth province. And with me sat only a handful. Maybe the sixth province wasn’t that popular.
A shiver ran up my spine as I peered outside, watching the trees, evergreens reaching up and touching the gray sky. Ga-in had told me on the phone last night that there was still a lot of rain, which was normal in the late spring and early summer in the sixth province, because the winter had a very long death compared to the early spring and hot, humid summer I was used to back home.
Thankfully, it seemed like no rain would be falling down today, and I was grateful. I was now wearing something appropriate, though, a large parka that I thought was a bit of an over exaggeration for forty-six degrees, but I had stepped onto the train at sixty-nine, and by the way that the trees seemed to rustle outside, it looked rather windy. I had forgotten to pull my gloves out of my suitcase, and I fretted, hoping that I wouldn’t catch hypothermia or something similar because of the lack of them.
I smiled. I was probably just over exaggerating, I told myself, it couldn’t be that cold. If I really had that much trouble with the cold, I could just ask Ga-in for some gloves or something. She probably had an extra pair, just in case.
The train slowly rolled into the station, and the signal for all passengers to get off, as this was the final stop, went out. I unlocked the lock for my valuables, lifted my bag out of the compartment, and after waiting for everyone else to go past me in the aisles, walked off of the train.
As my feet the concrete near the tracks, I was hit by the fresh air. It smelled like pine. It was easy to see why-trees surrounded the train station, and I knew suddenly why the sixth province was praised for their forest industry. The sixth province were known for having a belt of rocks that meant minerals and a small amount of diamonds, but when the west had hit a block with their forestry production, they called upon the rest of the provinces to help them out, they had been able to grow more and more trees to support the need for paper production.
“What’s up?” I turn around to see Ga-in, smiling at me. I notice that she’s shorter than me, and that she’s wearing girl clothes, and I’m hit with shock, almost falling over my stuff. Ga-in laughs, grabbing onto my luggage and wheeling it behind her.
“You’ve changed,” I whisper into her ear, looking around at everyone on the train platform. Ga-in turns and plays with my hair, ruffling the edges. She seems pleased, and so, I’m pleased, but I hadn’t seen her like this before, only like Insu… Only ever Insu.
The hair was the same, the same black, short hair style. But a purple hairclip stood out and kept some of her bangs from getting into her eyes. She wore black eyeliner that made her brown eyes stand out, and when I looked down at her hands, she seemed to be wearing pink nail polish. Someone that I had thought previously was as flat as board now showed off just a bit of cleavage underneath her jacket. In other words, she had changed dramatically since I had first seen her.
“And you look cold. Where are you gloves?” Ga-in asks, reaching out to touch my hands. I shy away instinctively, rubbing my hands together in a vain attempt to warm them up. Ga-in laughs, reaching into one of her pockets and retrieving a pair of gloves, in which she hands them to me. “Hadn’t you known you were going to the province with nine months of winter?”
I look up, bewildered. “Really? Nine months? I hadn’t thought that we were so close to the borders…If I had, I would have packed better…” I’m stopped again by Ga-in laughter, which echoes throughout the trees.
“It’s a joke, Yujin-ah. Back when the country was fifty states, they called most of the sixth province the state with nine months of winter. I’ve only seen maybe six, tops. And you won’t be seeing that much snow, anyways; right now it’s our summer.” I blush, stuffing my hands into the gloves and sighing at the sudden relief that the heat brings me.
“Do you know anything more about that?” I ask sheepishly, kicking a pebble and watching it fly down a flight of stairs and almost hit a pole. We jog down the stairs, heading our way towards a bus stop, where Ga-in hands me a bus pass, one that she must have purchased for me when she had heard of my arrival.
Ga-in sits down on a bench and I follow suite. “I learnt that this used to be called ‘Michigan’, one of the few states that bordered a country called ‘Canada’, which is now Winternorth. There were roughly fifty-one or fifty-two states in total, all belonging to this wonderful country that used to be called the USOA or something similar. But roughly around 2100, the leaders were unable to govern their country, and that is when the Capitale came in and fixed everything up. Not only that, but they took down Canada, too, and cut off every single tie we had with them.
“Then the fifty-two states were divided into eleven provinces. The first was on the east coast, which was called ‘New England’, and this was supposed to be part of the province, but instead, it was grouped as the sixth province. The second province included Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia and Virginia, and Kentucky. The third is your province, yes? North Carolina, where you were in South Carolina, and Tennessee. The fourth province was the biggest-containing Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas. The fifth is right underneath us, with Illinois, Iowa and Missouri. Then it’s Michigan and Wisconsin for the sixth province. The others I never learned, unfortunately, but supposedly the eleventh province had Alaska and Hawaii or something like that.”
“You’re so smart,” I whisper before I realize what has left my mouth and Ga-in smiles whole-heartedly. I look down at my shoes. “Just when you were saying all that, you looked so proud. You must really like history, don’t you?”
Ga-in nodded. “But historians aren’t as needed when you have the Capitale, right? They keep track of everything for you, don’t they? But when I was young, my dream of joining the Capitale and working on the log books like I still dream of doing was hit down. And so I gave up on it, just like a bunch of people do in the sixth province. You see, the only exciting thing here anymore is the matching ceremony, because people pray that they’ll be able to leave.”
The bus arrived, and our conversation suddenly fell silent. As we filed up to get onto the bus, Ga-in whispered into my ear, “I’ll tell you more when we get home.”
**
Her house was surrounded by forest, and the walkway was covered in dirt, and I suddenly wished for my lovely driveway back home instead of the slush that now accumulated around my feet. I smiled when Ga-in turned around, just to make sure I was still ok, and we had to hold hands the rest of the way. I didn’t mind.
“Why do you dress like a boy?” I ask, my feet warming up in front of the fireplace, a hot cup of tea in my hands, and Ga-in sitting beside me. The screen can easily be turned on, but I doubt there’s anything good on at one o’clock in the afternoon, and there are still a thousand questions that circle my head. I don’t want to watch some lifeless television; I want to know more about my match.
Ga-in sighs, setting down her tea on the coffee table in front of us. “I don’t really know what it is like in the third province, but here, it is hard. And unfortunately, even if our ancestors worked so hard to create equality, the sixth province was so backwards. The Winternorth people threaten to come into our houses every night and kids are taken from their families, and everyone just prays to disappear, because disappearing will be much better than the living hell their lives are right now.
“And for a woman, things were especially different. You see, my mother died when she was young, right after having me, actually. The match hadn’t worked as smoothly as the Capitale had thought it would and so she died, and I had barely any chance to really meet her. And so in that split moment, my father decided that I would be a man, instead of a woman. The doctor is a friend of my father’s, and so he made the documents read that I was a guy-that I was Son Insu. Because not that many officials stay in the sixth province, I was able to be a girl unless it was a special meeting, or a ceremony. Everyone here has really lost hope, and so no one cared about me pretending to be a boy. My father wanted me to have more opportunity than what I would get as a girl. And so, he made a decision that would help me in the long run.”
She sighed, tucking a loose strand behind her ear. I watched her profile, watching as she breathed through her nostrils, and out through her open mouth, and noticed that she had lip balm on. But her eyes, even if they did sparkle, were cold. Cold as the province she lived in.
“What are you going to do?” I asked, and she turned to me, confused.
“What?” she asked, puzzled, cocking her head to the side. This was the first time I had ever seen her look like this, and suddenly, a burst of confidence flowed throughout my veins. I swallowed.
“What are you going to do, Ga-in? You say that this province has no hope, that everyone here is a lost cause. You obviously don’t like it, so what are you going to do? How are you going to stop this from being such a hellhole? Ga-in, because you are pretending to be a man, you are a step up higher than everyone else. You’ve got the Capitale fooled-just look at your match. But it’s your match that is asking what are you going to do with this advantage? So answer me.”
Her gaze was stone cold, and I was breathing as hard as I could, wondering by what force was keeping our eyes locked so intensely.
“I’ll need someone to stay with me,” Ga-in says, and I smile brightly at the determination in her voice. Great! I set down my tea cup, so that the handle almost touches Ga-in’s, and twist myself on the sofa, my eyes stuck to her’s, watching as they morph as she thinks, the way her bottom lip pulls in between her lower and bottom lip.
“I’ll go with you,” I promise. I grab onto her hand but she pulls away, looking down at the tea cups, her face red from the heat that now circulates around.
“I don’t want you doing this simply because I want to. I may be your match, but you shouldn’t be forced into doing something as dangerous as this simply because you want me to do it. I don’t want you to get hurt,” Ga-in admits.
She doesn’t trust me. My mouth opens in shock and I watch as she starts getting up, getting ready to leave. “You should stay the week, anyways,” she advises, “Think of it as a vacation.” She is about to walk away when my hand grabs onto her wrist.
“I love you,” flies out of my lips. She looks down at me in shock, and her wide eyes make me cry, and soon I’m sobbing, sobbing so much more than I did back when I had seen Jiyeon for the first time, much more than I had when my grandfather had passed, so much more than anything else in my life.
She’s right beside me, patting my back and pushing my hair out of my face. I wipe my face with the back of my hand, chuckling to myself. “I’m sorry, I probably look really stupid.”
“You’re beautiful,” Ga-in admits, “You’re so damn beautiful.”
I gape, before chuckling again, tucking a strand behind my hair. “T-thanks.”
Ga-in smiles, “I want you to come with me, to fight with me. You’re strong.”
She cups my face and leans in, stealing a kiss from my lips. It’s different from the first time we kissed, I realize. This time it feels like a thousand things have been lifted off of my chest as I press myself closer and closer to Ga-in, in hopes to find out more about her. There are no secrets anymore. I feel happy. Safe.
“A week will be enough to plan things, yes?” I ask, and she nods.
“I reckon it will be,” she replies, kissing me on the nose and pulling me up from near the fireplace to start working. I smile to myself.
This might work.
**
“They’ll never listen.”
“Of course they will.”
“What if this leads to a rebellion of some sort? What if the Capitale goes against me?”
I sigh, patting Ga-in’s shoulder and kissing her cheek. She’s dressed up as Insu today, with a suit and a tie and she looks completely masculine. I wear her purple hairclip in my hair. Insu turns to me, kisses me chastely on the lips, and smiles, walking up the steps to the Capitale.
I don’t wait; I walk home. In the sixth province. Where Ga-in will come home.
--
end.
a/n: thank you everyone (tyler, especially, if he's reading this) that was patient with me with this fic and told me to finish it, goddammit, or they'd kill me! fic ended up being 12.6k in the end, which is the longest, and they'll just keep on getting bigger!
a/n1: this pairing is real, guys. look it up.
a/n2: hope you enjoyed and it made sense? yeah
ga-in/uee
future!au ; r
based on the book matched and the book the giver mixed into one fic ; written for the femmebigbang
part one
part one
Insu stays for the weekend before he has to leave back for the sixth province.
The dinner at home is awkward with my father’s intense glare and my mother’s soft worrying over him. I try to make up for it by taking him out on a walk before curfew, and we walk, hand in hand, down the street and back. His pale skin glimmers under the streetlights, and I blush whenever he turns down and smiles at me. Something with his eyes makes me feel like he’s only looking at me and my heart skips. My health monitor asks if something is wrong and he laughs into the air when I grow redder.
“Yujin-ah, you’re so adorable,” he says, wrapping his arm around my own. I squirm self-consciously, so he adds, “And I really like that.”
The sun has set by now, and nighttime covers us with its cold blanket. Time moves slowly, but summer is coming up soon, and that means more time off, more time with Insu, and I imagine spending weeks on end at his place if parents allow it, or spending days doing summery activities in the third province, where there are mountains and we could go hiking. My hands shake with anticipation.
“You said we needed to talk,” I remind him. I know that it was a bit early to be bringing up such things, but I was curious. My family had noticed how angered I was the night of the letter. At the time, I had thought that I had the right to. I still, in the back of my mind somewhere, believed that.
“You’re in an athletic high school, correct?”
“Pardon?” I ask, completely startled by the question itself. He repeats himself, a small smirk on his lips. I slowly realize how much of a melting pot that smile can be.
“Yeah,” I respond, my eyes wide with curiosity. He digs his hands into his jean pockets and smiles.
“Are you a fast runner, then?” Insu asks, brushing his short, black hair from his piercing eyes. I nod. He smiles to himself, like he’s thinking of a joke between him and someone else, and I watch as he takes a step towards me. He pokes my sides, his girly fingers digging into my sides, before running away as fast as he can.
“Yah!” I scream, pumping my fists as fast as I possibly can, trying my best to catch him. He ends up tripping up in the road, and I grab onto his arm, flipping him around to catch a wide smile on his face. He pulls me into a hug, and I accept willingly, the aftershocks leaving my body through my fingertips. We’re laughing until the curfew bell rings and we’re forced to walk back home.
“I hope that my father isn’t that bad,” I mumble, heading up the porch steps, “I hope you don’t feel like leaving or whatever because of his domineering presence.”
Insu shrugs, “I’ve dealt with worse, I can promise you that.” I don’t ask him about the full truth on that statement.
I grab onto the doorknob, ready to walk through the door, when Insu grabs my wrist and pulls me around again.
“Where’s my goodnight kiss?” he asks, and before I can reply, he presses his lips against mine.
They’re so soft.
**
The second day he’s here, I bring him to the only big green space in town, the middle of our little brook where families like to sit a chat, or kids like to run around and dare to scoop pennies and dimes out from the fountains that decorate the gray and white pathways. It’s peaceful, very peaceful, with the sounds of nature, from the grass crackling underneath footsteps to the soft trickling of water.
“Why did you bring me here?” Insu asks. His pale skin shines in the summer’s light, his dark hair shining underneath the sun that leaks between the trees. He looks uncomfortable, out in the open like this, covered only by the trees, his eyes darting around to see if anyone is watching. I wish to reach out to him, to grab his hand and promise that everything will be alright; but it isn’t nighttime and people can see.
I shrug, the corners of my lips turning up a little. “I just thought that you would prefer it here than stuffed up with my father. You’re leaving tomorrow, right? I wanted to show you as much of our town as possible before you had to leave… I’m sorry, we can go back if you really want to…”
I start to turn back around when he grabs onto my wrist and flips me back around, a bright smile on his lips. I hadn’t noticed how pretty his teeth were until this moment, when I see the bright contrast, and I wonder, yet again, if there is anything at all that makes him imperfect. From what I have seen, it doesn’t seem to be like it.
“No, Yujin-ah, I really like it here,” he says, sliding his fingers down from my wrist to my hand, and we hold them together, my lips pulling into a wider smile. I feel foolish suddenly and keep my head down, my cheeks turning a tint of red. “Yujin-ah?” he asks.
I don’t look up, but soon, I feel the softness of his fingers brushing against my chin, and he pulls my head up. The memory of last night’s kiss runs past my eyes like a movie; it was spectacular, that was the truth. Insu leans in, so close that I’m sure that our noses are brushing in, and turns his head just a little bit, so that our lips can mesh beautifully. My free hand rises up and goes to his neck, my fingernails barely scraping the skin, before I put my hand down flat onto his neck.
He pecks me on the cheek before we pull away, and I wish that he didn’t have to leave for tomorrow. He swings back on his heels, his hands finding home in his pockets. Insu raises his eyebrow and cocks his head to the side, and we continue our walk through the park. Sometimes, when we’re walking, my hand brushes his arms, and I blush. I know he’s noticing because each time this happens, a small chuckle leaves his lips.
**
The next morning I stand on the platform with my father and Insu, waiting for the train to come and whisk him away, back to the sixth province. We all look a bit stupid, but at least I am not wearing something skimpy-the clothing is appropriate and I’m thankful for the second day of sunshine that has been brought upon us. He still wears a coat, though, ready for the harsh winter that will meet him when he steps out of the train, back home.
I stand way too close to him, and my father keeps his distance, thank god. I smile awkwardly, leaning back and forth on my toes. My curiosity has never been one of my pros, and I think of this fact now. This whole weekend, I had been wondering, waiting for when Insu would eventually tell me what it was exactly that he was so desperate to tell me at first, and then so casual to talk about, now. There were many occasions that I had almost shaken it out of him, before remembering normal interactions between matches. Matches didn’t fight.
“So,” I say, pulling the word apart and letting it roll of my tongue. His smile appears again, and I seriously wish that I could wipe that grin off of his face-but I love it way too much to really hit him that hard for it. He cocks his head to the side and I roll my eyes, pushing his shoulder just a little bit, to prove some sort of point (that point, I’m still not that sure about, of course). “Come on, just tell me!” I pout, and that seems to work.
He looks up, to see that the train has appeared, fading into view from the distance. He grabs my wrist, kisses my cheek, and puts his lips right next to my ear. “I’m a girl. Son Ga-in.”
My eyes widen and my world breaks in two. Before I can do anything, that smirk has mounted the train and is about to disappear to better places. And unfortunately, I don’t have a ticket.
**
My match was a girl. I had a trouble believing that that was the truth, to be honest. The Capitale made sure that everyone was paired up accordingly, and that nature supported it. Why did they pair me up with a girl, then? Insu. Ga-in. Boy. Girl. There was such a big difference, but why was I the only one that really knew the difference between Son Insu and Son Ga-in, now. Ga-in made a pretty believable boy. She looked, acted, and even felt like a boy. I didn’t get it.
Her hands.
Suddenly the fact jumped to my head. Her hands were far too small, far too feminine to ever belong to a man. That had jumped to my attention when we first held hands, and then every time afterwards. I had always, always, considered them as a red flag, but had quickly pushed it aside. This was the Capitale. The Capitale was supposed to be right-they were always right.
So what was wrong with this scene, then? Why did it end up being like this? Why was a matched up with a girl? This wasn’t natural. Sure, Ga-in could pass as a pretty good boy… Had the Capitale forced her to be a guy? So that she could be matched up with me, a girl, too? Was the scales tipped?
“The sixth province,” I breathed. Did it have something to do with the Winternorth people? Was something bad going on over there, something that I didn’t have the slightest clue about? Was Ga-in a Winternorth, smuggled into here by some spy or something, and forced with a male identity not to get caught?
I pressed my face down into the mattress, forcing myself to let go of all the questions that flocked around my head like birds. I just needed some rest, I told myself. When I woke up in the morning, I could easily send a letter to Insu before I went to school, just asking for some clarification. To be perfectly honest, it could have just been a little game, a joke that he was playing to make fun of me or something. I tried to laugh but nothing came out but the worry that was clogging up in my throat.
I just wanted to sleep, I told myself. I had spent all day worrying, and in the process worrying my family, who kept on giving me odd looks when I huffed all around the house, not sure how to spend the rest of my Sunday. They suggested going for a walk, or calling up with Jinah, all suggestions that I politely turned down.
I didn’t want to leave the house; I wanted to call Insu and get to the bottom of this. That, unfortunately, did not seem possible. He was probably on the train, minding his own business, maybe reading a book or listening to some music, squished between others on the train. Calls weren’t possible on trains, they moved that fast.
I finally went downstairs on the training machine and started running until I felt like my lungs would explode. I closed my eyes and pretended that I was running towards the truth-but every time that I had thought that I had reached the end, there was just another corner, and I would be running for another few minutes. The machine eventually stopped and told me to go to bed.
I tried to drift off to sleep, my eyes dreaming of Insu’s (or Ga-in’s) dazzling face and features. What would it be like between us now? Would it really be the same? Would it be ok? I had a trouble believing it; even that Insu was a girl. But his hands, I told myself.
I fell asleep smiling.
**
“So, how was your first encounter with the third kind?” Cheolyong asks me when we’re spending our free time next Saturday playing games, mainly card games that don’t require that much attention or skill. We’ve both decided that we don’t’ feel like thinking tonight; our minds fogged with afternoons spent with our other-halves.
I had tried working over the course of the week, to keep my school marks up, but I had been unable to concentrate because of Ga-in/Insu, and so, spent most of my time wishing that Jinah was in my class, and not in who-knows-where, now. And Cheolyong had gone off to the outlands of the province to meet Jiyeon, his match, and had been approved a week to spend with her. That meant that I was left without my two best friends for the course of the week.
I laugh, “He was fine, thank you very much. It wasn’t like he was some type of mutant or anything.” He rolls his eyes, that same look I remember seeing on his face when we were younger pasted onto his lips. “I got airmail from him recently, actually. Two weeks from now, and I will be going to the sixth province, to meet him.” I wink, throwing some of my brown hair over my shoulder. Cheolyong laughs. “How was yours?”
Cheolyong sighs. “She’s fine, very fine. But she’s very self-conscious. She kept on making sure that she looked ok. I doubt I’ll ever be as comfortable with her as I am with you, Yujin.” I look down at my hand, placing a card down above the pile-beating his next card. He sets another down, as do I, before I finally speak up.
“But you’re a very comforting person, Cheolyong, I’m sure that’s why you were matched with her. I’m sure that you’ll eventually make her turn over and show her more confident side. I promise. Opposites attract, right?” I smile to try to comfort him, and he smiles back.
We finish the game, grab our coats, and walk home together.
“We are pretty comfortable together, aren’t we?” I ask, a small smirk placed upon my lips, my hands in my pockets and my eyes watching the sky above us.
“It’s to be expected from a group of kids that have been together since they were very young,” Cheolyong answers, his steps in tune with mine, and I know that he is watching the sky with me. Silence falls like the sun and we’re comforted only by each other’s footsteps.
“Jiyeon is coming next week. I would love it if you met up with her,” Cheolyong says, and I look up from the heavens to turn him and I smile whole-heartedly. I had only heard little things about Jiyeon, and had seen her face on the screen during the Matching ceremony, but she was very pretty, and everything that I had heard about her from Cheolyong, which, unfortunately, wasn’t that much, seemed to be positive.
I nodded. “Of course, I would love to meet her, too!” I draped my arm around his shoulders and punched his ribcage. “I need to know who’s stealing my Cheolyong away from me.” We laugh.
“You sound so much like your father right now, Yujin,” he points out, and I hit his side once more, until he pretends to double over in pain, and I pretend to be calling for help, until Cheolyong shushes me with his hand and we run out of the streetlights until the only sounds are our footsteps and the curfew bell.
**
She is beautiful. Jiyeon is so beautiful that it’s almost annoying.
Cheolyong looks like he loves her when he looks into her eyes, and I instantly feel jealous. Jinah has been sending me messages in hope to brighten up my mood, but nothing that she could ever send would make me feel happy about myself at that moment-the moment where Cheolyong and Jiyeon walked in, hand in hand, flustered face turned to flustered face, smile to gorgeous smile.
The whole dinner is awkward, but I see the insecurities that Cheolyong spoke about. She turns around often in her seat, checks her makeup bag and her mirror, and keeps her eyes on her plate unless she’s brought into the conversation. I’m the third wheel-I shouldn’t talk that much. The conversation is therefore awkward, filled with small jokes about the people around us, and our matches. If Insu is ever brought up, Jiyeon seems to be much more interested.
I feel defensive when talking about Insu, so I try to answer the vaguest of answers as possible with the shortest answers. I’m not trying to be rude, I scream at Cheolyong with my eyes when Cheolyong glares at me during the yes-and-no questionnaire, but seeing as Insu had only airmailed me twice since our last meeting, I was still very on the fence about everything. And with no one to talk to it about, I felt like any moment we talked about it, I would eventually spill the truth: that Insu may be a girl.
I had wanted to tell either Jinah or Cheolyong about this for so long, but had never been able to find time to really come clean. Of course I wanted to say the truth! If I could, I would have earlier, but I couldn’t. And somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that Insu wouldn’t want me blabbing my mouth about something that was obviously so private that it had taken so long for him to admit it to me.
Great job back there, reads the text that Cheolyong sends a few minutes after, when I’m on my way home from the restaurant. I bite down in my tongue and stuff my phone into my pocket, keeping up my pace to make sure that I don’t text something bad or call him up and start screaming at him. I pump my fists, walking as fast as I possibly can until I’m running, sprinting down to my house.
I sprint up the stairs and hide in my room. I pull out my phone, hide my head in my knees, and dial up Insu’s number before I realize what I’m doing. It’s probably five-thirty o’clock over there, I calculate in my head. I count the number of rings before I finally hear his voice.
“Yujin-ah?” Insu answers.
I sob, as much as I possibly can, until I’m positive that my eyes will never return to their natural colour. I just need to cry so much, I need to talk as honestly as possible.
“My best friend, h-he brought… he b-brought his match and asked me to eat with them tonight! S-She’s so be…beautiful and I feel so u-ugly whenever I’m around her. It’s those types of girls that I really hate. And she’s so compatible with Cheolyong! It’s just the way that they look into each other’s eyes that make me feel so stupid…” I don’t notice how much I’m rambling until laughing cuts me off.
“Why do you care about your best friend’s match, Yujin-ah?” Insu asks, and my knees slide down, my calves hitting the wooden floor. “You’re not matched with him, so why should it matter, who he’s paired up with? You know what, Yujin-ah? This match may be pretty, but she isn’t as pretty as you are. Yujin, I love you.”
“But you’re a girl,” I mumble, “But matches are supposed to be with a boy and a girl…”
Insu laughs, “The Capitale obviously wanted us to be matched. Think of it like that.”
“But Insu-”
“My name is Son Ga-in. Please call me that instead,” Ga-in corrects and I nod, like a scolded child. She sighs when I don’t reply. “Yujin-ah, if it really annoys you so much, I can pass as a boy, for the rest of eternity, and be Son Insu for you. But I had thought that you were different, especially when we went to the park together that one day, together. I hadn’t thought I was going to ever tell you; state myself as sterile. But I trusted you, and I still trust you. I’m sorry if I perceived it wrong.”
I shake my head. “N-no! Please, I would never want you to not trust me.” I can see the smile on her face through the receiver, the way that her lips would turn, the way she would look at me. I feel suddenly relieved by that.
“You’re still coming over in a week, yes?” She asks, and I hum yes. She laughs. “That’s great. I apologize, but I have to go.”
“Bye, Ga-in,” I mumble, and there’s a pause.
“Bye, Yujin-ah. I love you.”
**
Sunday is work, and I am slowly starting to despise work. Nothing keeps me entertained, working my fingers through the keyboard, through the mouse clicks, but I try my best to stay concentrated, to get better marks. The day my job will be elected is dawning on my quickly, and I bite my tongue and shake my head each time my employer or Jooyeon reminds me of it. It feels awkward, knowing that soon, you’ll be moving up.
“You’d be a great matcher,” my employer tells me, “Do you want me to put in a good word for you?”
I shake my head, smiling. “That isn’t necessary,” I reply as politely as I possibly can. He shakes his head and walks off.
Ga-in and I were a mistake. I would hate to be the one making the mistake.
**
It’s more than ten degrees colder from my home to Ga-in, and I sit, shivering in my seat. The Officials had had to send me with some warmer clothing when they had learned that I would be spending the week in the sixth province with Insu, to get closer to each other. It was one of the last few weeks of school, so if I studied for test week when I was with Insu every night, I would be fine, they advised.
I tucked away my mathematics text book, tucking into my hand bag. My suitcases sat above me in a cubby, locked up safely by a password that I played over and over in my head. When I had reached my stop, which just happened to be the last stop, all I had to do was punch in the numbers and then slide out my articles, and step off of the train.
It was very quiet, with barely any people left. When I had first walked onto the train, the whole carriage was filled with people, and so finding a spot was difficult. But slowly, people started getting off, walking off at certain provinces, and I had now passes the third, second and seventh, headed straight for the sixth province. And with me sat only a handful. Maybe the sixth province wasn’t that popular.
A shiver ran up my spine as I peered outside, watching the trees, evergreens reaching up and touching the gray sky. Ga-in had told me on the phone last night that there was still a lot of rain, which was normal in the late spring and early summer in the sixth province, because the winter had a very long death compared to the early spring and hot, humid summer I was used to back home.
Thankfully, it seemed like no rain would be falling down today, and I was grateful. I was now wearing something appropriate, though, a large parka that I thought was a bit of an over exaggeration for forty-six degrees, but I had stepped onto the train at sixty-nine, and by the way that the trees seemed to rustle outside, it looked rather windy. I had forgotten to pull my gloves out of my suitcase, and I fretted, hoping that I wouldn’t catch hypothermia or something similar because of the lack of them.
I smiled. I was probably just over exaggerating, I told myself, it couldn’t be that cold. If I really had that much trouble with the cold, I could just ask Ga-in for some gloves or something. She probably had an extra pair, just in case.
The train slowly rolled into the station, and the signal for all passengers to get off, as this was the final stop, went out. I unlocked the lock for my valuables, lifted my bag out of the compartment, and after waiting for everyone else to go past me in the aisles, walked off of the train.
As my feet the concrete near the tracks, I was hit by the fresh air. It smelled like pine. It was easy to see why-trees surrounded the train station, and I knew suddenly why the sixth province was praised for their forest industry. The sixth province were known for having a belt of rocks that meant minerals and a small amount of diamonds, but when the west had hit a block with their forestry production, they called upon the rest of the provinces to help them out, they had been able to grow more and more trees to support the need for paper production.
“What’s up?” I turn around to see Ga-in, smiling at me. I notice that she’s shorter than me, and that she’s wearing girl clothes, and I’m hit with shock, almost falling over my stuff. Ga-in laughs, grabbing onto my luggage and wheeling it behind her.
“You’ve changed,” I whisper into her ear, looking around at everyone on the train platform. Ga-in turns and plays with my hair, ruffling the edges. She seems pleased, and so, I’m pleased, but I hadn’t seen her like this before, only like Insu… Only ever Insu.
The hair was the same, the same black, short hair style. But a purple hairclip stood out and kept some of her bangs from getting into her eyes. She wore black eyeliner that made her brown eyes stand out, and when I looked down at her hands, she seemed to be wearing pink nail polish. Someone that I had thought previously was as flat as board now showed off just a bit of cleavage underneath her jacket. In other words, she had changed dramatically since I had first seen her.
“And you look cold. Where are you gloves?” Ga-in asks, reaching out to touch my hands. I shy away instinctively, rubbing my hands together in a vain attempt to warm them up. Ga-in laughs, reaching into one of her pockets and retrieving a pair of gloves, in which she hands them to me. “Hadn’t you known you were going to the province with nine months of winter?”
I look up, bewildered. “Really? Nine months? I hadn’t thought that we were so close to the borders…If I had, I would have packed better…” I’m stopped again by Ga-in laughter, which echoes throughout the trees.
“It’s a joke, Yujin-ah. Back when the country was fifty states, they called most of the sixth province the state with nine months of winter. I’ve only seen maybe six, tops. And you won’t be seeing that much snow, anyways; right now it’s our summer.” I blush, stuffing my hands into the gloves and sighing at the sudden relief that the heat brings me.
“Do you know anything more about that?” I ask sheepishly, kicking a pebble and watching it fly down a flight of stairs and almost hit a pole. We jog down the stairs, heading our way towards a bus stop, where Ga-in hands me a bus pass, one that she must have purchased for me when she had heard of my arrival.
Ga-in sits down on a bench and I follow suite. “I learnt that this used to be called ‘Michigan’, one of the few states that bordered a country called ‘Canada’, which is now Winternorth. There were roughly fifty-one or fifty-two states in total, all belonging to this wonderful country that used to be called the USOA or something similar. But roughly around 2100, the leaders were unable to govern their country, and that is when the Capitale came in and fixed everything up. Not only that, but they took down Canada, too, and cut off every single tie we had with them.
“Then the fifty-two states were divided into eleven provinces. The first was on the east coast, which was called ‘New England’, and this was supposed to be part of the province, but instead, it was grouped as the sixth province. The second province included Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia and Virginia, and Kentucky. The third is your province, yes? North Carolina, where you were in South Carolina, and Tennessee. The fourth province was the biggest-containing Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas. The fifth is right underneath us, with Illinois, Iowa and Missouri. Then it’s Michigan and Wisconsin for the sixth province. The others I never learned, unfortunately, but supposedly the eleventh province had Alaska and Hawaii or something like that.”
“You’re so smart,” I whisper before I realize what has left my mouth and Ga-in smiles whole-heartedly. I look down at my shoes. “Just when you were saying all that, you looked so proud. You must really like history, don’t you?”
Ga-in nodded. “But historians aren’t as needed when you have the Capitale, right? They keep track of everything for you, don’t they? But when I was young, my dream of joining the Capitale and working on the log books like I still dream of doing was hit down. And so I gave up on it, just like a bunch of people do in the sixth province. You see, the only exciting thing here anymore is the matching ceremony, because people pray that they’ll be able to leave.”
The bus arrived, and our conversation suddenly fell silent. As we filed up to get onto the bus, Ga-in whispered into my ear, “I’ll tell you more when we get home.”
**
Her house was surrounded by forest, and the walkway was covered in dirt, and I suddenly wished for my lovely driveway back home instead of the slush that now accumulated around my feet. I smiled when Ga-in turned around, just to make sure I was still ok, and we had to hold hands the rest of the way. I didn’t mind.
“Why do you dress like a boy?” I ask, my feet warming up in front of the fireplace, a hot cup of tea in my hands, and Ga-in sitting beside me. The screen can easily be turned on, but I doubt there’s anything good on at one o’clock in the afternoon, and there are still a thousand questions that circle my head. I don’t want to watch some lifeless television; I want to know more about my match.
Ga-in sighs, setting down her tea on the coffee table in front of us. “I don’t really know what it is like in the third province, but here, it is hard. And unfortunately, even if our ancestors worked so hard to create equality, the sixth province was so backwards. The Winternorth people threaten to come into our houses every night and kids are taken from their families, and everyone just prays to disappear, because disappearing will be much better than the living hell their lives are right now.
“And for a woman, things were especially different. You see, my mother died when she was young, right after having me, actually. The match hadn’t worked as smoothly as the Capitale had thought it would and so she died, and I had barely any chance to really meet her. And so in that split moment, my father decided that I would be a man, instead of a woman. The doctor is a friend of my father’s, and so he made the documents read that I was a guy-that I was Son Insu. Because not that many officials stay in the sixth province, I was able to be a girl unless it was a special meeting, or a ceremony. Everyone here has really lost hope, and so no one cared about me pretending to be a boy. My father wanted me to have more opportunity than what I would get as a girl. And so, he made a decision that would help me in the long run.”
She sighed, tucking a loose strand behind her ear. I watched her profile, watching as she breathed through her nostrils, and out through her open mouth, and noticed that she had lip balm on. But her eyes, even if they did sparkle, were cold. Cold as the province she lived in.
“What are you going to do?” I asked, and she turned to me, confused.
“What?” she asked, puzzled, cocking her head to the side. This was the first time I had ever seen her look like this, and suddenly, a burst of confidence flowed throughout my veins. I swallowed.
“What are you going to do, Ga-in? You say that this province has no hope, that everyone here is a lost cause. You obviously don’t like it, so what are you going to do? How are you going to stop this from being such a hellhole? Ga-in, because you are pretending to be a man, you are a step up higher than everyone else. You’ve got the Capitale fooled-just look at your match. But it’s your match that is asking what are you going to do with this advantage? So answer me.”
Her gaze was stone cold, and I was breathing as hard as I could, wondering by what force was keeping our eyes locked so intensely.
“I’ll need someone to stay with me,” Ga-in says, and I smile brightly at the determination in her voice. Great! I set down my tea cup, so that the handle almost touches Ga-in’s, and twist myself on the sofa, my eyes stuck to her’s, watching as they morph as she thinks, the way her bottom lip pulls in between her lower and bottom lip.
“I’ll go with you,” I promise. I grab onto her hand but she pulls away, looking down at the tea cups, her face red from the heat that now circulates around.
“I don’t want you doing this simply because I want to. I may be your match, but you shouldn’t be forced into doing something as dangerous as this simply because you want me to do it. I don’t want you to get hurt,” Ga-in admits.
She doesn’t trust me. My mouth opens in shock and I watch as she starts getting up, getting ready to leave. “You should stay the week, anyways,” she advises, “Think of it as a vacation.” She is about to walk away when my hand grabs onto her wrist.
“I love you,” flies out of my lips. She looks down at me in shock, and her wide eyes make me cry, and soon I’m sobbing, sobbing so much more than I did back when I had seen Jiyeon for the first time, much more than I had when my grandfather had passed, so much more than anything else in my life.
She’s right beside me, patting my back and pushing my hair out of my face. I wipe my face with the back of my hand, chuckling to myself. “I’m sorry, I probably look really stupid.”
“You’re beautiful,” Ga-in admits, “You’re so damn beautiful.”
I gape, before chuckling again, tucking a strand behind my hair. “T-thanks.”
Ga-in smiles, “I want you to come with me, to fight with me. You’re strong.”
She cups my face and leans in, stealing a kiss from my lips. It’s different from the first time we kissed, I realize. This time it feels like a thousand things have been lifted off of my chest as I press myself closer and closer to Ga-in, in hopes to find out more about her. There are no secrets anymore. I feel happy. Safe.
“A week will be enough to plan things, yes?” I ask, and she nods.
“I reckon it will be,” she replies, kissing me on the nose and pulling me up from near the fireplace to start working. I smile to myself.
This might work.
**
“They’ll never listen.”
“Of course they will.”
“What if this leads to a rebellion of some sort? What if the Capitale goes against me?”
I sigh, patting Ga-in’s shoulder and kissing her cheek. She’s dressed up as Insu today, with a suit and a tie and she looks completely masculine. I wear her purple hairclip in my hair. Insu turns to me, kisses me chastely on the lips, and smiles, walking up the steps to the Capitale.
I don’t wait; I walk home. In the sixth province. Where Ga-in will come home.
--
end.
a/n: thank you everyone (tyler, especially, if he's reading this) that was patient with me with this fic and told me to finish it, goddammit, or they'd kill me! fic ended up being 12.6k in the end, which is the longest, and they'll just keep on getting bigger!
a/n1: this pairing is real, guys. look it up.
a/n2: hope you enjoyed and it made sense? yeah