for the First time

The week passed the way weeks passed when you were trying not to think about something, loudly, and full of reminders.

It wasn’t Jimin’s fault. That was the thing you kept coming back to, the thing that made it more complicated rather than less. She wasn’t doing anything differently. She texted the same way she always texted you, about small things, about rehearsal, about a vending machine near the studio that had eaten her money twice in one week and which she was now taking personally.

WED 11:47

JIMIN

Sis barged into my apartment

got me food

She feeds me when she’s worried

I’ve been fed four times this week

You

Are you okay?

JIMIN

yeah

tired

showcase is next week

she knows

Normal. All of it completely normal.

The problem was you.

Specifically, the problem was that you had apparently crossed some invisible line somewhere between the hallway with the laundry and the station steps on Saturday, and on the other side of that line everything looked the same and felt entirely different, the way a room looked the same after you moved one piece of furniture, nothing was gone, nothing new, but the vibe changed.

You noticed things you had always noticed but were now noticing differently. The way she remembered things you mentioned in passing weeks ago and brought them back as if the thread never dropped.

The way she’d taken your coffee on the walk and handed it back and kept going, mid-sentence, unbothered, like it was the most natural thing. The way she would say “Have a good morning :)” at the end of a conversation and completely mean it.

You were, in the most inconvenient possible way, extremely aware of her.

You had always been aware of her. That wasn’t new. But there was a difference between background awareness, the steady hum of someone threaded so far into your daily life they felt like furniture, but this, which was foreground, was loud, it followed you into rooms she wasn’t in and sat there until you acknowledged it.

On Thursday you met at the cafe. Corner table, second coffees ordered without discussion, the usual events. She was fresh off the showcase run-through and had the particular wrung-out energy of someone who had used everything and was refilling slowly. She stole the biscotti before it had been on your saucer for thirty seconds. You let her. She gave you the small private smile that meant she’d noticed you letting her, and the whole exchange took six seconds and said, if you were paying attention, everything about the two of you.

You were paying attention.

That was the problem.

She texted on Friday evening.

FRI 5:58 PM

JIMIN

hey

so

there’s a jazz festival tomorrow

I’ve never been

Woojin and a few others are going

tbh

do you want to come?

just us

You read it twice. Not because it was complicated. Just because of the way she said it, just you and her, tomorrow, together.

You

yeah

what time?

JIMIN

I’ll come get you at two

it’s near your place anyway

wear something that isn’t grey.

I own things that aren’t grey too

prove it tomorrow

And that was that.

You looked at your wardrobe for longer than was strictly necessary.

She showed up at your door at 2:04 in an ivory dress with small pink flowers on it, her hair down, a small bag over one shoulder. She looked like someone who had gotten dressed for a day that was going to be good and had been right about it.

She looked you up and down when you opened the door.