With a side of Mochi

The rain had been going at it for three hours straight, and Jimin was still somehow surprised by it. She stood in the doorway of the small cafe with her hood already half-soaked, staring at the sheet of grey outside like it had personally offended her.

"It's just rain," you said from your usual corner table, not looking up from your book. You had a half-empty mug of Americano in front of you, steam curling lazily against the window. "Get in here. You're letting the cold air in."

She made a dramatic noise, something between a groan and a sigh, and stepped inside, shaking her umbrella at the mat in a way that splattered water on your shoes.

"You're a menace," you said flatly.

"You love me," she said, dropping into the seat across from you with all the elegance of someone who had given up on elegance for the day. Her hair was still damp at the ends. She smelled like rain and the faint floral shampoo she always used, the expensive one she pretended was drugstore brand.

She flagged down the server and ordered her usual oat latte without looking at the menu. Then she stole your untouched biscotti from the saucer like she owned it.

"Hey—"

"I'm cold," she said simply, biting into it.

You stared at her. She stared back, unbothered, chewing. You looked back at your book.

"Unbelievable," you muttered.

"You were going to leave it anyway."

"That's not the point."

She smiled all the while still chewing. The small, private kind she saved for moments she found funnier than she let on. Yu Jimin, twenty-six, dancer, chronic biscotti thief, and inexplicably your closest friend for going on five years. She had a way of being wherever you were without it ever being like an imposition. It just felt like the natural state of things, you at a table, her across from it.

Her latte arrived and she wrapped both hands around it, closing her eyes briefly like she was receiving something sacred.

"Okay," she said, opening them again. "I'm human again."

"You were barely that before."

"God, you're such an ass."

"You walked here in the rain without checking the forecast."

"I was optimistic."

"You were stupid."

"Same thing sometimes."

You finally put your book down. She was watching you already, which she tended to do openly, without apology, in a way most people would find uncomfortable. Jimin looked at you like she was reading something she'd already memorized and was just checking for new lines. It used to unsettle you. You'd grown into it the way you grew into everything with her: gradually, and then all at once.

"What?" you asked.

"Nothing." She took a slow sip. "You looked tired earlier on the call. Are you sleeping?"

"I'm fine."

"That's not what I asked."

You looked at the rain-streaked window. "Sort of. It's been a weird week."

She nodded and didn't push; she knew when and when not to. Five years of you had taught her the architecture of your silences.

"I brought those chocolate mochi things you like," she said, pulling a crumpled convenience store bag from her jacket pocket and sliding it across the table. "Before you say anything, I didn't squeeze them. Probably."

You opened the bag. They were fine. "Thank you."

"Don't get emotional about it."

"I'm not—"

"You're doing the face."

"I don't have a face."

"You have so many faces. You have, like, a whole collection. That one is the 'I'm touched, but I refuse to admit it' face."

You ate a mochi just to have something to do with your mouth.

The café filled up a little as the rain intensified, a couple sharing one chair because they'd sat down before realizing the table was taken; an old man with a newspaper that was at least a week old; two university students arguing about something in low, urgent voices. The ambient noise wrapped around your corner like a curtain.

Karina had her knee pulled up to her chest on the chair, socked foot tucked under her thigh. Her wet shoes were on the floor beside her. The server had given them a look. She had given the server a smile so genuinely disarming that he'd walked away without saying anything.

That was another thing about her. She got away with too much, and somehow you were always an accessory.

Noticing that she was getting cold, you hand her a warm blanket that the cafe always had on the side of the tables.

“Why didn’t you just take a blanket?” You spoke out of concern.

“I was waiting for you to give them to me,” she flashes a bright smile at you as if it were natural.

“You are crazy, I swear,” you let out a scoff, turning into a small chuckle from her silly antics.

"Can I say something?" she spoke. After a drink from her latte, the tone was slightly different. Still easy, still her, but with a thread of intention in it that made you set down your mug.

"When have you ever asked?"

"I'm being polite."

"That's terrifying."

She smiled, but she kept going. "I like you. I know I've said it before. I know you haven't answered. I'm not trying to pressure you, I just—" she turned her mug slowly in her hands. "I think it's worth saying out loud again because I mean it more now than I did the first time, and I'm not great at keeping things in."

The rain hit the window in a gust. Someone near the entrance swore as they came in and found the mat already soaked through.

You looked at her. She was looking back in that same way, open and honest, not hiding a single thread of it. No game in her eyes, no strategy. Just Jimin.