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Maybe, Byulyi thinks, when Yongsun's fingers are tangled in her hair, holding her in place by her neck, when her hands are gentle and loving between Yongsun's legs, and when it's all over and they're lying on Byulyi's queen size mattress and the sweat is cooling stickily on her skin, not that it stops her from reaching out to entwine her fingers with Yongsun's, this was all inevitable.
The all-mighty sun holds the universe together with the force of its gravity. How else was Byulyi going to escape Kim Yongsun when the connection had been drawn in their names?
Moon. Sun.
And maybe it's cliché, to think of such things.
The sunlight falls through the blinds of her bedroom, diffracting into glowing gold lines as it encounters the side table, the rumpled bed sheets, the scattered pillows. Clothes on the floor. Across Yongsun's cheek curving into the smile Byulyi loves most as she leans in to kiss her, taking her time, like they have all the time in the world.
They don't. The seconds are ticking down to their next schedule; a stop at the salon, a radio show, followed by a fitting. It feels like it never stops, sometimes, the rush and the adrenaline. Shuttling between cameras, lights and smiles that become tighter and tighter until Byulyi thinks they'll have to snap.
Sometimes they do. Most days, for now at least, they don't.
But here, now, Yongsun sighs and parts her lips, asking for more, languid and unhurried. Her hands are skimming up the sensitive strip of skin around Byulyi's waist, raising goosebumps. And if Byulyi could be brave enough to admit it, she'd describe it as reverent. Loving.
Is it love?
In between the first tear-stained kiss and the long lonely hours where Byulyi couldn't bear the emptiness of her night-filled rooms and she'd walked the blocks to Yongsun's house and now; the fragile, golden bubble of her bedroom -
She can't say. Actually, she's been afraid to ask.
There are thirty-one songs on Yongsun's laptop. Some of them are less than a minute long, others are stuttering and sparse, lyrics drifting off, the beats nothing more than Byulyi's reconstruction of Yongsun's heartbeat.
All of them are about Yongsun, for Yongsun.
She'd given the USB with shaking hands, but at least she'd had the courage to stay and listen to them with Yongsun, watched her eyes widen and fill with tears.
At the end of it, she'd let out a long breath.
Byulyi hadn't had time to let go of the one breath she was holding onto. Byul, you're amazing.
On some level, on some level , Byulyi knows what they have is irreplaceable, unique. No matter how busy the schedule, no matter how disparate the filming sites are, they're always in contact, trading gossip about cast members and directors, complaints or compliments about the catering, selcas and sceneries. Byulyi gets along famously with her parents and her sister, Yongsun's still trying her best to win over the dogs, but she does it with the same determination that she tackles any obstacle in life. Yongsun might think that Byulyi's mom and sisters don't like her but Byulyi knows that her family respects effort and hard work over most things.
It's not about the sex; it's more like the sex is a consequence of the intimacy they've been sharing in pieces over the years, and then one day Byulyi looked down and realised that she'd given her whole heart.
Did Yongsun give hers?
If she did, Byulyi's not sure where it is.
If it's in the way Yongsun always seems to lean on her shoulder when she's tired during their promotions, or the way she likes to lie along her back when they're done and kiss down her neck, shoulders, arms, until she gets to the tattoos.
Because it's not there in words. Not there in the way Yongsun clams up when some staff member makes a joking allusion to their friendship, although Byulyi will always treasure that this- whatever it is - was built on a true and genuine connection.
Don't mind them. Don't mind any of them. This is just us. For us. There are so many moments, and so many words that Byulyi has to stifle just in time, that it feels like they've crystallized into a knife that pokes her heart when she's least expecting it.
But the pleading look in Yongsun's eyes brings her back, the mute desperation in the way she'd held onto her sleeve when Byulyi was ready to walk out the door and never come back to her bed.
I need you too.
Fear is not a substitute for the affirmation that Byulyi is looking for.
Yet she's still here, wrapping her arms around Yongsun, sun-warmed and pliant, pressing kisses to her temple, thinking I'll never want anything more than this .
Yongsun, who threw a birthday party, for just the two of them.
Yongsun, who told the directors, give Byulyi a chance to sing. She can do it.
Yongsun who's seen Byulyi through every low, dark point in her career when she'd said she wasn't good enough and told her, No.
Yongsun, who kisses hard and rough and desperate in a way that makes Byulyi lose all sense of time and space, lost in the depth of her want.
When Wheein was done crying on her couch, tears drying as she stared up at the ceiling, her hand loosely grasping the neck of a soju bottle, she'd asked, broken and soft, why does love hurt so much? And Byulyi hadn't known what to say, how to answer, what else to do than to gather her up in blankets and hug her to sleep, wishing that she too could know the answer because maybe, then knowing the unknowable would make it hurt less.
Maybe it will always hurt. Byulyi can't see her future without Yongsun, and from the way she talks, about the house she wants, a balcony and a view of the skyline of the city she's grown up in, and we'll get brunch together on the weekends, Yongsun's set on her being in her future too.
As what? Drinking with Hyejin is the only time she's dared to voice something close to a confession out loud, masked in a friend-of-a-friend-told-me-that-she-heard . Hyejin listens, blinking slowly, cat-like, one leg curled up so she can rest her head on her knee to every slow, stuttering, back-tracking explanation (Byulyi can't find herself to even tell white lies to Hyejin. There's something pure and naïve yet devastatingly wise-beyond-her-years about her gaze. Lying to her doesn’t even feel like a real lie because Hyejin tilts her head like she knows and like she loves them still).
In the end, Hyejin mulls it over, swirling her glass of wine, and says, your friend should ask. Pauses to take a sip.
Who do they want to be to that person?
Who does she want to be?
Chasing answers to such questions seems more futile by the day, when Byulyi watches the younger kids running around the company, loud and energetic, brimming with potential, always on the cusp of a genius breakthrough.
The math is missing some variables, the logic has given way a couple of steps back, perhaps at the very beginning when Byulyi stepped into the training room and recognized the bright eyes of the shy teenager who'd hung onto her shirt in their old com, clocked in on the way the girl in bright red lipstick shadowed her footsteps and braced her shoulders like she wanted to fight the world. Took in the half-wary, half-shadowed look in Yongsun's eyes and the way she held herself like she was made of fire.
But now, today, as the alarm they'd set on Byulyi's phone goes off and they scramble for the shower-
Do I have to shower? They'll wash my hair at the shop.
I'll die if you go to the show smelling like sex, we reek , you dumbass.
What if I just rinse?
- it's been clear for a while, Byulyi finds, heartbroken and at the same time, so full of light listening to Yongsun break into laughter, clinging to her back.
She's not going to be leaving anytime soon.