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.

“You’re wearing blue,” she spoke, surprised.

“I told you.”

“I didn’t think you actually owned blue.”

“You said wear something that isn’t grey.”

“I meant it rhetorically.”

“That’s not what rhetorical means.”

She smiled, the full one, briefly, and turned toward the street.

“Come on. We’ll be late.”

“Late for what? It’s a festival.”

“late for the good spots.”

She was already walking.

“Keep up.”

The festival was held in a larger park near your home, the kind of outdoor venue that existed only in good weather, all grass and low stages and people spread across the ground on blankets with the relaxed energy of a Saturday that had decided it was going to be worthwhile. The air smelled like early summer, warm, with a slight edge of something green underneath it, the music reached you before the entrance did, low and unhurried, a trumpet doing something patient over a walking bass line.

Jimin stopped just inside the entrance and looked at it all.

She didn’t say anything for a moment. Just stood there, taking it in, the stage in the distance, the light coming through the trees at that particular late afternoon angle that made everything look slightly golden.

Her expression was the open, unguarded one she wore when she wasn’t performing anything for anyone, just her, in the moment.

“Oh,” she spoke quietly. Not to you. Just to herself, or to the festival, or to the general fact of being somewhere for the first time and finding it better than expected.

You watched her have the moment.

You’d been trying not to do that all week, watch her, specifically, in the intentional taking note way you’ve been doing since Saturday, but this one you let yourself have. She looked exactly like herself in that dress in the light, and she was looking at something she’d never seen before with the complete, unhurried attention she gave things she wanted to remember, and you thought: This is going to be a problem…

Then you thought: No, it’s really not. Just gonna be in front seat of my mind for a while.

“Come on,” you said. “Good spots.”

She looked at you and laughed, short and surprised, caught off guard by you using her own words back at her, and followed.

You found a spot on a low hill to the left of the main stage, far enough back that the crowd wasn’t pressing in but close enough that the music had weight to it. Jimin settled onto the grass, folding her legs to one side, her dress smoothed down without her seeming to think about it, bag on her lap, and looked at the stage with the focused quality she brought to anything involving performance.

“Why do you look like you’re about to evaluate a concert?” You chuckle at how focused Jimin looked at the stage.

“It’s a jazz festival. Relax, enjoy it.”

“Sorry, force of habit I guess.”

You sat beside her. The afternoon moved around you the way afternoons did at outdoors festivals, slowly, warm, the kind of time that didn’t feel like time was passing so much as pooling.

The set on stage wound through something unhurried and then shifted into a slower piece, a saxophone taking the lead, the kind of playing that didn’t ask anything of you except to listen. Jimin’s shoulder was against yours. Neither of you had moved to create that proximity, it just happened the way things happened with her, naturally, without a decision being made.

“I didn’t know it would feel like this,” she spoke, after a while.

“Like what?”

She thought about it. “Like it’s in no hurry.” She tilted her head slightly. “Everything I do had a count. A tempo. It goes somewhere specific on a specific beat. This just… goes.”

You looked at the stage. The saxophonist had his eyes closed. “Is that good or strange?”

“Both,” she said. “Mostly good.”

“It’s kinda relaxing.”

She pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them, still watching. The sky had this golden streaked hue that only showed up in late afternoons like this one.

The sun’s rays on Jimin’s silhouette, sun kissed Jimin. An image you probably weren’t going to forget anytime soon.

Around you people were eating, talking, lying on their backs in the grass. A kid nearby was asleep on a jacket with one arm flung out. Somewhere behind you someone laughed at something.

“There’s something really nice,” she said quietly, more to herself than to you, “about experiencing something for the first time.”

You looked at her.

She was still watching the stage, chin on her knees, the late afternoon light doing what it was doing to everything, softening the edges, going warm. She wasn’t talking about the festival anymore. Or she was, and she also wasn’t.

You were paying attention. For five years.

The saxophone resolved into something quiet and then the set ended, the crowd did its scattered applause, Jimin straightened up and looked around with expression of someone returning from somewhere pleasant. She reached into her bag and produced two cans of something cold, she’d brought them, of course she had, of course she’d thought of that, and handed you one without looking.

“You brought drinks,” you said.

“I prepared.”

“Since when do you prepare?”

“Since always. You just don’t notice because I make it look effortless.” She cracked hers open with great composure. “You’re welcome.”

You opened yours. The next act was setting up, a piano trio, the pianist doing something exploratory and quiet while the others arranged themselves. The sky had gone the particular blue of early evening, still light but with the first suggestion of what was coming.

Jimin was watching the pianist.

You were watching Jimin.

You stopped arguing with yourself about it.

The festival had thinned out by early evening, the families with children going first, the blanket crowd thinning to the people who intended to stay for the full thing. You and Jimin had moved at some point from the hill to a spot closer to the stage, near a tree that was doing useful things with the remaining light, its leaves catching it and breaking it into pieces.

She was quieter than usual. Not in a heavy way, in the way she was quiet when she was full, when she’d taken in enough of something that she didn’t need to put into words yet. You’d seen this before, after performances she found genuinely moving, after long evenings that had gone better than expected. She carried it differently than silence that came from something wrong.

You knew the difference. Five years.

She turned to look at you at some point, for no particular reason, just turned, the way she sometimes did, checking in, the reflex of someone who wanted to know how the person beside them was doing.

“What,” you spoke.

“Nothing.” She looked back at the stage. “You’re quiet.”

“So are you.”

“I’m full.” she said simply. “What’s your reason.”

You looked at the stage. The pianist was doing something slow and patient, the kind of playing that didn’t announce what it was going to do next, just arrived at each note as it came.

“You said something earlier,” you spoke. “About experiencing things for the first time.”

She didn’t say anything. Just waited, she always waited, not pushing, just making room.

“I’ve been thinking about that all week,” you said. “Not that specifically. Just something like it. The idea of having something in front of you that’s clearly good and just not—” You stopped. Tried again. “Not letting yourself have it.”

The music continued. A couple nearby stood up and started slowly moving together in the grass, not quite dancing, just swaying, their foreheads together. Nobody around them paid any attention.

Jimin was very still beside you.

“I’ve been an idiot,” you said. “For a while. About something that wasn’t actually complicated.”

Her attention fully on you.

“How long is a while,” she said, and her voice was even, completely even, the steadiness of someone holding something carefully.

“Long enough that I should probably apologize.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I know I don’t have to. But I want to.” You looked at her. She was already looking at you, open and patient, the whole of her present in it.

“You told me something true, more than once, and you gave me the space to sit with it and never made me feel bad about how long I took. That’s— I don’t want to take that for granted. I want you to know that.”

She was quiet for a moment. A real moment, receiving it properly, the way she received things that mattered.

“Okay,” she spoke softly.

“Okay?”

“Okay.” The corner of her mouth moved. “Is there more?”

“Yeah,” you said. “There’s more.”

You turned to her properly. The festival carried on around you, the music unhurried, the evening light doing its last warm thing through the leaves of the tree above you. She was looking at you in that way, not asking for anything, not bracing, just there, completely there, the way she had always been there.

“I think about you constantly,” you said. “That’s not new, I’ve always thought about you. But it changed somewhere. It’s been— it’s been you for a long time. I just kept finding reasons not to say it out loud.”

She didn’t say anything.

“The coffee on Saturday,” you said. “I’ve thought about that every day this week.”

A sound came out of her, not quite a laugh, the thing that happened just one before. “The coffee,” she repeated.

“The coffee.”

“I knew what I was doing,” she said.

“I know you did.”

“Completely intentional.”

“Jimin.”

“Sorry.” She wasn’t sorry. Her eyes were bright. “Keep going.”

you laughed, short and helpless, pulled out before you could do anything about it. She laughed too, and for a moment it was just that, the two of you laughing at a jazz festival in the early evening while a piano trio played something patient on the stage and the last of the afternoon light came through the trees.

You reached over and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

It was a small thing. A quiet thing. Your hand barely there before it wasn’t. But she went still when you did it, the laughter settling, and she looked at you with an expression you didn’t have a name for, softer than anything, and more certain than anything, and entirely, completely her.

You kissed her.

Not dramatic. Not announced. Just the distance between you closing, your hand finding her jaw, and her returning it without hesitation, warm and unhurried, the way everything was between you, it had apparently always been heading even when you’d been too busy being an idiot to get there.

You pulled back.

She was looking at you. Her expression was the open one, all of her in it, nothing hidden. Something in it was the warmest thing you had ever seen on a person’s face.

“Took you long enough,” she said.

“I know.”

“I’m not complaining.”

“I know that too.”

She leaned into your shoulder. You put your arm around her, and she settled there like she’d always been planning to, easy and certain, her hand finding yours on your lap.

On stage, the piano trio moved into something new. The evening had gone properly blue now, the lights coming up around the festival, the grass glowing slightly gold in them. Around you people were swaying, talking, lying back and looking at the sky.

The kid who had been asleep on the jacket earlier had woken up and was eating something his mother was holding out to him. Everything was exactly as it had been an hour ago except for the part of it that wasn’t.

Jimin looked up at you after a while.

“I posted something on instagram after we got here,” she said.
“Before you arrived at the entrance.”

“What did you say?”

She looked back at the stage. “That there’s something really nice about experiencing something for the first time.”

You were quiet for a moment.

“Were you talking about the festival?”

She didn’t answer right away. Just kept watching the stage, her hand in yours, her shoulder against your arm.

“Mostly,” she said.

You tightened your hand around hers, just slightly.

She squeezed back.

You stayed until the last set ended. Neither of you suggested leaving early and neither of you suggested staying, you just stayed, without deciding to, because the evening was good and neither of you was in any particular hurry to put it somewhere.

The crowd filtered out slowly around you. Jimin stood and brushed the grass off the back of her dress and picked up her bag while looking around at the emptying festival with the expression of someone taking a last look at something they’d enjoyed.

“Good spot,” she said.

“Good spot,” you agreed.

Outside the festival grounds the city had gone fully into its evening setting, the lights up, the streets busy with the particular energy of a Saturday night finding its footing. You walked without a destination, the way you sometimes walked, going in the direction of her neighborhood by the natural drift of things.

Her hand found yours somewhere on the first block. No announcement. Just her hand in yours, fingers settled, comfortable, as if your hand was molded to fit hers.

You walked her to the station. She stopped at the top of the steps, key already in her hand out of habit, and looked at you.

“What?” you spoke. confused why she’s just standing there.

“I don’t really wanna go yet,” her hand playing with the strap of her bag.

“Okay.”

“Your place is closer to the festival.”

“It’s really not.”

“It’s closer than mine.”

“By four minutes.” you raise your fingers.

“That’s significant,” she said, with complete composure. “I’m tired.”

You looked at her. She looked back, patient and unbothered, key still in her hand, waiting to see what you were going to do with that.

“You’re inviting yourself over,” you said.

“I’m making an observation about geography.”

“Jimin.”

“I’ll need something to sleep in,” she added. “Since we’re being practical about it.”

You laughed. She smiled, the small private one, and put her key back in her bag, already decided, already pivoting in the direction of your apartment like the conversation had concluded satisfactorily.

You fell into step beside her.

Your apartment had the particular quality of a place that hadn’t been expecting company but didn’t mind. You both got your shoes off at the door without discussing it. You changed into your house slippers and set a spare pair in front of Jimin's feet without thinking about it.

She looked down at them. Then at you.

“Thanks,” she said, and stepped into them.

Jimin walked further in and looked around in the easy, unselfconscious way she looked at everything, taking stock without commenting on most of it. She picked up a book from your table, checked the back, put it down. She looked at your kitchen like she was assessing it.

“Do you have tea?” she said as she turned to face you.

“Yeah,”

“The good kind or the kind that’s just been in your cupboard for two years.”

“It’s fine.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

You found the tea. It was fine. She accepted it without further interrogation and sat on your couch comfortably while you made it. The apartment settled around the two of you in the particular way it did when someone who was supposed to be there was there.

You brought her something to sleep in, a t-shirt, a pair of drawstring shorts, and left them on the couch beside her.

“My lady,” you said with a small bow.

She let out a small chuckle at your silly acting.

“The bathroom’s that way.” You chuckle as you point at the small hallway behind her.

She picked them up, and disappeared into the bathroom.

She came out a few minutes later in your clothes.

The t-shirt was too big on her, the shorts drawstring tied loosely, her hair down from whatever it had been doing earlier. She looked completely at comfortable in it. You probably liked that more than you should.

She looked at you. “What.”

“Nothing.”

“You’re doing a face.”

“I’m not doing a face.”

“The ‘I’m not going to say what I’m thinking ‘face.” She sat back down on the couch and pulled her knees up. “You’ve had it since the festival.”

“I’ve been thinking since the festival.”

“About what?”

“About—” You stopped. She was watching you with that particular patience, completely unhurried, like she had all night, which she did. “About how long I made this complicated when it wasn’t.”

She was quiet for a moment.

“It wasn’t complicated.”

“I know that now.”

“It was never complicated,” she said simply, without making any accusation. “You just needed time to get there.”

“You waited.”

“I told you. I’m patient when it matters.”

“I take back what I said when I called you an idiot for liking me.” You raised both hands, in a surrendering gesture.

“Imagine calling your future girlfriend an idiot.” She chuckled. “The audacity.”

You both chuckle, then it dies down, the comfortable silence of just both of you in your living room.

You looked at her, in your clothes, on your couch, her chin on her knees, looking back at you the same way she’d been looking at you for five years, which was the same way she’d been looking at you tonight at the festival, which was the same way she’d been looking at you the first time she said it, across a table over soup, like you were something worth being patient for.

You sat down beside her.

She leaned into your side without being asked, easy and just… there, her shoulders finding yours. You put out the lamp. The room went to the ambient glow of the city outside the window, soft and orange at the edges.

Neither of you said anything for a while. The city did its quiet late-night thing outside.

Somewhere below, a car passed. The apartment settled.

“I still can’t believe you went to the sandwich place,” she said, into the quiet.

“It was good.”

“I know it was good. That’s why I was gatekeeping it.”

“You can’t gatekeep things from me.”

“Apparently not,” She said, and there was something warm underneath it, the particular warmth of someone who didn’t actually mind.

You didn’t say anything to that.

She shifted slightly, getting comfortable, her head finding the angle it wanted against your shoulder. Her breathing slowed after a while, the way it did when she was getting close to sleep, you knew this, you’ve seen it before on long drives and late evenings on other people’s couches, the specific way Jimin went quiet when she was going under.

“Hey,” you said, quiet.

“Mm.”

“Come on.” You stood, and she made a sound of a protest that was mostly theatrical, and you got her up and into the bedroom the way you’d get anyone up who had fallen asleep on a couch, which was to say: with some patience and very little ceremony.

She took your side of the bed without asking, which you were not surprised by.

You got in on the other side. The room was dark, the city a low glow through the curtains. Jimin was already mostly gone, her breathing even, her face turned toward you in the dark with the complete, undefended openness of someone who felt entirely safe where they were.

You looked at the ceiling.

You thought about the festival. The ivory dress and golden light and her saying there’s something really nice about experiencing something for the first time. The way she returned the kiss without hesitation, like she’d been ready and had just been waiting for you to arrive at the same place.

Your thoughts began to speak to you.

She waited.

I know.

Don’t make her wait for anything else.

Jimin shifted under the sheets, moving closer to you, pulling you into a hug.

You gave her a kiss on the forehead.

“Goodnight.”