Lost and Found

Washed away like tears in the rain;

A stupid saying from a stupid old movie, one you weren't even sure if you were quoting correctly. It didn’t apply here in any case, you could still definitely tell she’d been crying, her face was all scrunched up, red and blotchy and blubbering, standing out in the middle of a storm for twenty minutes. Twenty minutes with her hair plastered to her face and sniffling while you sat in your car stupidly wondering what you should do.

The smart thing, the sensible thing, maybe even the right thing to do would be to mind your own business. Take the food you’d picked up from the restaurant, now cold anyway, and drive home forgetting about the girl crying out in the rain. 

But here you were, still watching, still trying to find reasons not to go. You’d still been waiting for your order when she walked in and took a seat in the back, happily scrolling through her phone, occasionally glancing at the door. 

Ten minutes had passed and she started to look up a bit more frequently. Twenty minutes and she was shifting in her seat, smile starting to fade. Thirty and she started texting on her phone, making the occasional call. You knew, the waitress knew, the chef knew, the other patrons all knew she'd been stood up before she did. 

So now you were sitting here watching her cry in the rain, stuck between not wanting to go over and embarrass her and not wanting her to feel like she was alone. 

God fucking damn it and you’re getting out of the car and getting immediately soaked. 

She didn’t notice you at first, still staring down at her phone, droplets splashing the screen, a call ringing out with no answer. She closes her eyes and looks up, letting the water splash over her as if it would cleanse her troubles or something. She jumps slightly when she opens them and sees you standing in front of her. 

“Oh hey,” you say and immediately hate the fact you tried to sound like you’d just come across her by coincidence in a supermarket. She blinks rain out of her lashes in silence.

“Umm… I’m-” you start.

“I know, we have Econ together.” 

That surprises you more than it should. You knew who she was of course, everyone knew Yujin, star student, captain of the cheer squad. You did not expect her to know you, regardless of having class together. She sniffles and rubs at her face, “You sit in the third row.”

“What?”  

“Third row, near the window, you always come in late.”

“That’s a little creepy,” your mouth supplies before your brain could stop it and her eyes narrow.

“Says the guy that's been staring at me from his car for twenty minutes,” she replies before you could correct yourself.

Fuck. Fair enough. 

“I was trying to work out whether coming over here would make me helpful or weird,” you say in the way of a lame explanation.

“And which is it?”

“Both maybe?” You shrug, “I was going to ask if you wanted an umbrella.”

She looks you up and down, then cocks her head to the side, looking at you askance, very sans-umbrella, “Do you have an umbrella?”

“It's in the car.”

She stares at you for a long moment, rain pelting down on the both of you before letting out a small water logged laugh.

“So just weird then.”

“I guess so,” you agree with a smile. 

“Yujin, do you want to get out of the rain?” You turn slightly, half toward your car, indicating, “I can take you home if you’d like.”

“I’m fine.”

“You look fine,” holy shit mouth, what are you doing?

Her face hardens, "What's that supposed to mean?”

“It means we’re both standing out in a storm pretending that we want to be here.”

“I didn't ask you to come over here.”

“I don’t want to be out in the rain, but I want you to be alone in the rain a lot less.”

Her expression softens slightly before your mouth betrays you again, “You look like a lost puppy.”

“What?”

“Not in, like, a bad way.”

“Is there a good way to call a girl a dog?!” 

“Like a very cute, very wet puppy.”

She stares at you incredulously, "You're horrible at this.”

“I’m starting to work that out, yeah.”

“Just now?”

“No, back when I realised I left the umbrella in the car.”

She smiles and it is radiant. Drenched, tear-streaked, shivering, radiant. 

You probably stare for far too long before tilting your head towards the car again, “Come on Puppy.”

“Oh, absolutely not,” she protests, “that is not becoming a thing.”

“I’ll call you whatever you like, as long as you get out of this,” you wave a hand at the unrelenting sky.

She hesitates, looking down at her very silent phone again.

“Look, if someone calls, I'll drive you back here and dump you out into a puddle. But until then, let me take you home. No questions, no judgement, just a weird third row econ guy trying to help.”

She looks at your car, then up and down the street, down at her phone before tracing back up to your face. She stood but it was like she was admitting defeat rather than gratefully accepting help, and it twisted the knife in your chest you hadn’t realised was there.

Yujin glances around as she settles into the passenger seat, shuffling the very cold take out container to the floor, before looking over at you starting the car and fiddling with the heaters.

“If you murder me, I'm going to haunt your lecture notes.”

“That's fine, if I murder you I'm going to be stealing your lecture notes anyway, because they're probably way better than mine,” you reply deadpan, looking up. 

She smiles again and you had to remind yourself you were just doing this to help a classmate get out of the rain, nothing more. She was close, far closer than you had ever been to her. Mascara only faintly showing now, soaked hair pushed behind one ear, and arms wrapping around herself while the heated aircon filled the car. 

I think you both would have known you were lying to yourself.

You hadn’t been looking for Yujin when you entered the library, that would have been ridiculous… and weird… and totally accurate. She was sitting alone at a table near the window, forehead down on the desk in front of her laptop, like she was praying for some technological or academic deity to come save her. 

It’d been a few weeks since the restaurant incident and you’d stuck to your word not to mention it, as the last thing she asked you when you dropped her off at her dorm. So you didn’t bring up the rain when she waved to you in class now, you didn't mention being stood up when you pass her at the cafeteria, or the crying when you see her in the corridor. 

But you did start to notice the patterns. She was almost always alone. Not physically alone, as popular as she was, but the expected presence of her boyfriend and best friend every time you saw her became glaring. An unsettling, and un-called for feeling had started to take shape. And here she was again, and here you were again, feet moving before you common sense could stop them. Mouth moving before your judgement could stop it.

“Do you think if I just leave you here the library staff will adopt you Puppy?”

She groans loudly without lifting her head, “I told you not to call me that.”

“You didn’t actually,” you grin and she looks up, indent of the table still red on her face and you grin wider. 

Yujin scowls at you and fixes her hair, which does absolutely nothing to stop the kicking behind your ribcage. Her phone buzzes on the table and she grabs it almost desperately, before her face falls and she drops it again. Your grin fades when the familiar sense of deja vu hits you. Yujin, glaring at you when your expression must've flickered notices.

“Don’t,” she warns.

“Dont what?”

“Say whatever you were about to.”

“I wasn't going to say anything.”

“Liar,” she huffs and the silence stretches slightly. 

“Is everything okay?” You venture, stupidly probably.

“I’m fine.”

“Well, at least we can both tell when the other is lying now.” 

She sighs, “Can you stop coming across me when I'm having a hard time?”

“Can you stop having a hard time so often?”

That stops her in her tracks, maybe reflecting on the patterns as well. “Fair,” she admits but you don't feel like you've won anything, let alone that argument. 

“So what were you trying to achieve before you decided fusing your forehead with the desk would help?”

“Hey, that was a studying technique, you wouldn't understand,” she protests with the hint of a smile.

“Oh, too advanced for me?”

“Definitely,” she nods solemnly

“Effective?”

Yujin goes back to scowling at you and you go back to grinning. 

“So what is it, Puppy?”

She points a finger at you accusingly, “Stop that. That is not a thing!”

“Tell me what's wrong and I'll call you what you want.”

She quite rightly looks like she doesn’t believe you but sighs and drums her fingers on the table for a second. 

“My hard drive corrupted with all my notes on it and Wonyoung was supposed to go get my backup USB from my boyfriend’s place.”

Patterns, and that sick feeling in your stomach doubles over. You look at the empty chair across from her and her phone face down on the table, and several torn up pieces of paper strewn around the place. You're not even sure if they had anything on them or they were just victims of her stress. 

“How long?”

“Not long,” she replies, shifting. You don't say anything, you’d already established you were both terrible liars after all. “An hour,” she finally admits, dropping her head and looking defeated.

 A grunt makes it out of your throat before you can stop it and her head snaps up.

“Don’t be judgemental.”

“To be fair Puppy, they're making it fairly hard not to be.”

The implied they was not intentional but also not missed by Yujin, who looked down at her phone again like willing it hard enough would make one of the people closest to her materialise. You slide your backpack off and fumble around in it for a minute, producing a small USB that Yujin looks at suspiciously when you slide it over to her. 

“What’s this?” She inquires, picking it up like she can see what’s on it if she stares at it hard enough, zoolander-esque.

“My notes.” Her eyes lift back up to you, inspecting you just as intensely.

 “Your notes?”

“No it's a banana,” you reply dryly and she reverts to the scowl she reserves for you most of the time. 

“Are you giving me these?” 

“Temporarily, I need them back tomorrow but you can use them today and make a copy.”

Truthfully, you did need them to study with but the kicking in your chest when she looked like someone had thrown her a buoy in a storm, an academic one this time, had you making stupid decisions. Also, a completely unrelated, totally unintended side effect that you would get to see Yujin tomorrow to get the USB back. She’s hesitating, either from not being used to people helping her or if taking it would mean admitting giving up on her friends, again.

“Take the notes,” you say softly and it seems to land.

“Thank you,” genuine, grateful, quiet, and your heart is doubling down on the hammering.

“Theyre not even haunted,” you supply helpfully, zipping up your bag and going to leave before you can do or say something stupid and Yujin frowns. 

“Didn’t you just get here?”

“I forgot I have somewhere to be.”

“Where?” 

Fuck, you weren’t expecting a follow up or for her to care enough to ask. 

“The, umm, stairs,” you pick the first feature in the room your eyes land on toward the exit and she just stares at you. “Honestly, I didn’t plan this far ahead, just let me white knight away heroically okay?”

She laughs, the first time you see any tension leave her shoulders since you walked in. 

“You’re still horrible at this helping thing.”

“You’re a good practice dummy though Puppy, I think I'm getting better.”

“Don’t-,” she starts, before seeing your shit-eating grin and just rolls her eyes, moving to plug the USB. 

You turn and the tiny “thank you” that follows you out of the room has you wanting to break all library decorum and cheer. 

Exams are over and the inevitable mid term college parties are under way. Too many people, too loud music, and not enough booze for all that academic suffering you feel like you've put yourself through for another semester. 

You spot her as soon as she walks in; summer dress, hair done up, slight heels, sunshine personified. Too pretty by far for this dingy party. Too pretty for any party really, but you admit that might be your bias talking. 

She spots you and waves, a smile spreading across her face and takes another look around before heading over in your direction where you're sitting on the kitchen counter. 

“What?” One of your friends asks, spying the stupid grin on your face, before glancing over his shoulder and sighing. “You’re playing with fire, mate.”

Things had been easy since the library, too easy in fact. You chatted after class, swapped notes, complained over text to each other, she had become a staple of your schedule and a friend in the recent weeks. The same patterns you observed and worried about in Yujin's life, your friends had noticed in yours. She might be just a friend, read as crush, but she was a gorgeous and very unavailable one.

“Shut up, Door. You can talk.”

“It was one time, I told you not to call me that!”

Yujin catches the back-end of the conversation as she arrives and looks between the two of you, “So the annoying nicknames are a you thing then?”

“It's not my fault I'm surrounded by such easy targets.”

“What’d you do?” Yujin turns to your friend. 

“Nothi-,” he starts.

“Walked into a door frame after Liz waved at him once,” you supply happily over the top of him, pointing at your friend. 

“That door popped out of nowhere,” he complains.

“It was attached to the building.”

“Structural issue,” he replies as if that explains anything and you laugh while gesturing between the two.

“Door, meet Puppy.”

“You are not allowed to call me that,” Yujin immediately points a finger at your friend.

“So I am now?” You ask.

“I’ve given up on you.”

“Aha! She is one of us then,” Door somehow cheers and consoles at the same time. “We’ve all long since given up trying to explain to him that he's not funny.”

“What are you doing here anyway, I thought you said you were going to eat your weight in bagels and watch Netflix?” A small, stupid part of you hopes she came to see you but that gets shot down the next moment. 

“Wonyoung kept asking me if I was coming and I wasn't sure but then I decided at the last minute. She's not answering her phone though, have you seen her?” 

You hadn't seen Wonyoung at the party yet. You had, however, seen Yujin's boyfriend earlier and that was not a comfortable coincidence. 

“I saw her, she went upstairs a while ago,” Door supplies and you would've killed him on the spot if it would have helped. 

“Oh okay great,” Yujin perks up. “I'll see you guys later then.” 

“I'll come with,” you hurriedly add and they both look at you with matching confused expressions. 

“Ooooookay, sure,” Yujin agrees. 

Five minutes later, you're knocking on doors and apologising to randoms for interrupting their private time squirreled away with each other, an increasing feeling of dread hanging over you. Every door you open, you hope to see Yujin's prick boyfriend playing video games with his mates and every door open that he isn't, that dread grows. 

“Maybe we should try calling her again?” You ask, there’s only one door left on this floor and you’re dragging your heels not to get to it any faster. You know you're a coward for it even if Yujin doesn't realise it yet.

“She hasn't picked up the last 14, why would she now? She's probably sprawled out somewhere waiting for someone to hold her hair back.” Yujin replies partially grumpily, as if this was an annoyingly amusing quirk of her best friend. 

The moan that cuts through the hallway is female, ecstatic, and loud. It locks both of you up instantly; you because you know what it means, Yujin because she thinks she recognises the voice. She takes a half step toward the door, but she’s stuck halfway between not wanting to intrude on her best friend and needing to confirm that feeling in the pit of her stomach. Blissfully, horribly, the next moment takes that question out of both of your hands.

“Fuck yes Wony, just like that.”

If you thought you were locked up before, the weeks of dread and suspicion and concern crystallise to root you in place. Hearing her boyfriend's voice has the opposite effect on Yujin as she practically lunges for the door handle. 

You don't particularly recognise the two people on the bed when the door swings open but you’d have to chalk that up to not knowing what her boyfriends ass looks like nor what Wonyoung looks like with her back arched and his hand fisted into her hair while she gets railed from behind. The scene is everything you expected and feared and regardless of not seeing either of their faces, with how quickly Yujin comes to a halt, it’s all you need to know.

The almost worst part is that they're so caught up they don't even hear the door open, both facing away from you as they are, moans and flesh meeting flesh overriding any intrusion that might have occurred in their little adulterous world. You're moving again, up to Yujin’s side as she lets out a choked little sound, a desperate little denial but somehow not a surprised one.

He lets go of Wonyoung’s hair to bring his palm down hard on her ass and she shrieks, head dropping to the sheets and turning to the side to see Yujin and you standing behind them. She screams again, panicked rather than lustful this time and it takes him a few more moments to catch up before he also turns to spot the two of you at which point several things happen at once; 

Wonyoung falls sideways out of bed, scrambling to cover herself but making it much worse in the process. Yujin's boyfriend turns and, amazingly, starts to try and explain something, several stuttered sentences and words that even his brain seems to catch on that they wont help before stopping each of them in turn. Yujin, for her part, starts picking things up off the dresser just inside the door and hurling them. You wouldn't have picked a ceramic bowl as particularly aerodynamic but Yujin makes it work, clocking her maybe ex-boyfriend in the head as he starts his third attempt at “It’s not what it looks like.”

You have no idea what to do, an intruder in this domestic drama, so you pull at Yujin’s arm to try and make her stop doming the guy. Not that you care for his well-being, you're of half a mind to join her, but the vaguely rational part of your brain recognises that Yujin getting arrested for killing someone with improvised throwable weapons is literally the only way this evening can get worse. 

“Yujin,” and she responds to her name, the lack of nickname for once landing harder than if you’d yelled at her. She turns to you, tear streaked and stunning, and you've got no answers for the hurt in her eyes but you pull on her arm, grabbing something from the dresser before closing the door on your way out. The sounds of arguing and scrambling still come from the other side, but you're tugging her along and down the stairs, past your friends calling out to you, and out the door into the night. 

You stop on the footpath and watch Yujin like she’s a wounded animal, unsure if she’ll lash out or start crying or run off. She surprises you by barking out a laugh, startling you, void as it is of humour. “Fuck,” she scoffs, arms wrapping around herself against the cold or the shock, “I’m so sorry you had to see that,” and youre stunned. Why in the fuck is she apologising to you right now? 

“It’s not your fault, I don’t- I mean it’s-,” you’re stuttering and maybe it’s just men that struggle to articulate when they’re stressed because you sound about as stupid as her boyfriend did.

“You’re still horrible at this helping thing,” she’s shell-shocked but at least she’s talking and you’ll take any distraction right now.

“Do these help?” You produce a set of keyrings that you swiped from the side table before you left.

“You want to steal his car?!”

“What?! No, that's psychotic,” Yujin looks slightly disappointed but you heft the keys in your hands a few times before launching them over some bushes and into the darkness. “There, if you’d thrown them they’d never be found, you’ve got quite the arm on you.”

You know you've said the wrong thing when her half smile stiffens, remembering why she had been throwing things a minute ago. You had been trying to lighten the mood but the fact of the matter was she had probably lost the two people closest to her in a single moment and that seems to come crashing back in on her.

“Come on, let’s get you home,” you try.

“No,” she immediately rejects and you think youve fucked up again, “I- they’ll find me there, I dont want to go home right now. I can’t face- I just need time.”

She’s starting to spiral and your mouth continues to betray you when you blurt, “You can stay at mine.”

She stares at you and you're scrambling to explain, “Not… like that, just somewhere to crash. Sorry, never mind, that’s weird.”

“No, it’s- thank you.”

You walk a couple of blocks to put some distance before you call an uber, and you both slide into the back silently. Yujin sits in the middle beside you, hands in her lap, folding and twisting them over and over as the streets pass by. Eventually her body sags, head tilting to rest on your shoulder, and you freeze. You know it's not flirtatious, but precious and precarious like a glass about to hit the ground. Your’e still staring at the back of the driver's seat like it's the most fascinating thing you've ever seen when her shoulders start to shake. Once, twice, soundless, there's no dramatic breakdown, no sobbing. Just quintessential Yujin taking every disappointment and beating in as best stride as she can while her tears stain your shirt. 

Your apartment is clean enough that you don't immediately hate yourself but it’s also very single-guy-didn’t-expect-to-have-crying-company kind of messy. She’s standing in the middle of your living room, half dazed, half curiously looking around at the unexpected peek into your life. Hoodie on the floor, probably too many dishes in the sink, tiny cactus in the corner barely clinging to life. She cocks her head at it and then you incredulously, “How did you manage to kill a cactus?”

“It’s not dead.”

“It’s trying.”

You hesitate before admitting, “I got drunk and thought it would like Tequila.”

“What?”

“Well, it’s like… Mexican you know?”

She stares at you before her mouth twitches up at the corners, you smile in return and she immediately frowns at you. You reflect on the fact this seems to happen a lot. 

“Stop it.”

“You smiled at my cactus.”

“It was a facial spasm. It’s a medical condition, you can't make fun of me for that.”

“It was a very pretty smile, I’m taking it.” What the shit is wrong with you?

She turns away and you busy yourself getting her a drink of water to distract from the fact you’re flirting with the girl that just watched her personal life get fucked to pieces half an hour ago.

You lead her to your room and grab a clean shirt from your closet. Her hands move to the zipper of her dress and you turn your back while she changes, trying to think of anything else; count the clothes hangers in your wardrobe rather than focus on the rustling of fabric behind you.

“Okay,” she says and you turn back to get punched in the chest by the sight of her sitting on the edge of your bed in just your shirt, hair loose around her face, mascara still smudged, and far too pretty for this horrific night or your bed. 

“Sleep,” you say and you're not entirely sure if you're instructing her or trying to convince yourself. 

It feels like she's going to argue but seems too exhausted to put up any fight as she slips under the covers and you pull up the blanket. You push the boundaries by picking up her phone on the nightstand and turning it off, nothing good will come from her answering any of the calls she’s been ignoring.

“Goodnight Puppy,” and you turn to go before a hand closes around your pinky, tiny and desperate.. 

“Stay?”

She’s staring up at you from under the covers, massive brown eyes swimming again and youre one stupid decision away from fucking up this night even further. You could so easily convince yourself to misunderstand this moment on purpose. Maybe you should have let her get arrested.

Your fingers slip out of hers as you take a step away. The irony isn't lost on you that the first time she’s actively asking for your help, you're rejecting her. It’s self-centred of you, although she doesn't know it, she just looks hurt. You crouch beside the bed, at her eye level.

“Yujin-” But she looks away. 

“I know,” she says, muffled now by facing the wall.

“No, you don’t. I-,” you pause, before jumping off a very tall and stupid cliff, emotionally dumping on a girl whose world has fallen apart being the height of selfishness. “I like you too much for that.” 

She rolls back over and her crumpled expression has frozen, stuck between knowing exactly what you mean and shocked that you’d said it. You stand up before you can continue to spectacularly make things worse, “I’ll be right outside.”

You turn off the light and close the door before you can persuade yourself otherwise, splaying out on your couch and staring at the ceiling. Neither of you were getting much sleep tonight.. 

You wake up to someone standing over you, thoughts of Yujin’s boyfriend kicking in your door because you stole his girlfriend and his car keys jerk you awake faster than you're comfortable with, but it’s only Yujin standing over you, peering down, probably not threateningly.

“Jesus Christ Puppy, what are you doing?”

“Why are you sleeping in the hallway?”

“I was… guarding against burgulars,” you supply lamely, sleepily. Truthfully, you did have some paranoid dreams about her boyfriend kicking in the door of your apartment and had ended up outside your own bedroom in the middle of the night in some sleep deprived version of chivalry. 

“From the floor?”

“Advanced technique.” 

“Effective?” She smiles at the reference, and you scowl at her.

“Well we didn't get robbed, so maybe.”

“Fair,” she straightens up, the hem of your shirt riding far too high for your poorly slept brain to deal with properly. Maybe it’s the fact that you're on the floor but her legs seem to go on forever, pale white thighs disappearing into your now-favourite t-shirt which in itself is hanging loosely from her tiny frame, one shoulder bare. She’s still slightly red-eyed and puffy from either lack of sleep or crying, or both. And she’s still the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen. 

Fucking hell you wish you’d never gotten out of your car at that restaurant in the rain, you lie to yourself, you can’t deal with this shit.

Her phone buzzes in her hand snapping you back to reality and she jerks before glancing at it, buzzing again, and again. You don't need to see the screen to know who it is, and you get up off the floor, body sore and cracking in an embarrassing amount of places. 

“I’m going to get coffee,” stretching your arms above your head.

“What?”

“Coffee? It's this great thing from Brazil, thought maybe my cactus would like it.”

“What?” She repeats and you think that's probably fair enough. 

“I’m going out for a few minutes,” glancing down at her phone. “You can have a shower and .. sort things out while I get breakfast.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

“Take your time, Puppy.” 

“Don’t… not call me that.”

“Like you had a choice,” you laugh but the admission has your heart kicking the back of your poor ribs again. 

The morning is way brighter than it should be for how much you actually drank last night and the pounding on the inside of your skull has a lot more to do with the half naked Yujin in your apartment that you borderline confessed to than any hangover you might have. 

The walk to the cafe and back is far too short and on your second procrastinating loop around the block you realise you don’t really know the appropriate amount of time to let someone talk on the phone to their boyfriend and best friend that you’d seen fucking recently. Not really a googlable subject, you’d know because you tried on the third time around.

Yujin is standing in the kitchen when you re-enter your apartment. That in itself, is not an issue, you left her in your apartment after all, and it is approximately breakfast time, so it makes complete sense she would be in the kitchen. The reason your body, mind, and soul come to a grinding halt in your own apartment on a Saturday morning is because Yujin is in your kitchen, in nothing but a towel. 

Three loops of the block was the right amount.

It’s just a towel, your towel in fact, you've seen it hundreds of times. You've seen Yujin herself hundreds of times, you've seen her arms and legs mostly bare before, she is a cheerleader after all. You've even seen Yujin wet, rained on you perv, on multiple occasions. None of the individual parts of this scenario should shock you. The sum of her, however, standing in your kitchen, in your apartment, in your towel, dripping hair unkept, bare skin glistening in post-shower glow undoes you on the spot. 

Your eyes tick down for a split second, the towel tucked under her arms, the curves of her chest showing just enough to burn itself into your memory for an unbelievably long time. You drop the bagels and as you start to bend down to pick them up you find yourself glancing at her thighs before wrenching your head back up to look at the ceiling so fast your teeth click. It’s an impressive awkward gymnastic feat of bodily spasm, if you're being objective, and you hear Yujin laugh as you start counting the paint strokes on the ceiling and rub your sore neck. 

“Sorry I was… bagels,” you manage, smooth, and she laughs again.

“I didn’t hear you come in. Sorry, Bagels.”

The way she says it makes you twitch your head, you know she’s smirking at you, gorgeous dimples and eye smiles probably out in full force. You really want to see it so you crack an eye at her while trying to keep looking at the ceiling and probably only succeed in looking increasingly manic. She is smiling at you; Yep, you’re done.

“That’s not becoming a thing, Puppy.”

“Okay, Bagels.”

You groan at the thought of your friends finding out, Yujin would definitely tell at least Door, and it almost makes you forget about the naked woman in your fucking kitchen. Almost.

“I should get you some umm clothes,” are the most difficult words you've ever said.

“No,” your head snaps down at her this time, “I mean, I should put my dress back on. I have to go home and if I’m probably going to run into them, I probably shouldn’t be wearing your clothes at the time.”

Your mood instantly sours, “Oh,” silence stretches, “Do you need me to drive you or will that make it worse?”

“Better not chance it but… thank you.”

She takes a bagel from you with a small smile and retreats to your bedroom so you can breathe properly again. By the time she comes out, she’s dressed again, an uncomfortable parallel to last night's drama that had yet to unfold. She’d put the pretty dress on hoping for a night out, a night of post exam de-stress with her friends and ended up with maybe one of the worst moments of her life. You were trying to help last night, but if you were honest you just helped her run from her problems. The fact that she was dealing so well at the moment was probably more of a testament to how little she had faced those problems yet, not how well she had faced them. 

She’s standing at the door and you’re once again failing to come up with the right thing to say. Going back in her own clothes, without your help, it doesn’t hurt that she’s rejecting your help, she’s going on her own terms, facing the loss of her boyfriend, her best friend, and the remains of her life all at once. You want to say something or do something to help, but you both know you're shit at that.

“Thank you, for letting me stay… and being there for me,” she’s quiet but looks as sombre as you’ve ever seen her. “I had forgotten what that was like. I think- I’m so used to dealing with everything by myself, last night could have been much worse if you weren’t there. So.. thank you.”

“Don’t apologise.”

“I didn’t, I was saying thank-”

“To them,” this was definitely the wrong thing to say but what’s new. “Whatever happens, you're going to feel like it was your fault in some way because that's just who you are, you’re a good person. It wasn’t. Your. Fault.”

“But-”

You close the distance and grab her shoulders, “It wasn’t your fault. They chose. I don't know why, I don’t even care why, but that's on them and don't you dare apologise for their cruelty for a second.”

She scuffs at an eye and you pull her into a hug so you don’t have to see her cry again, “Call me if you need anything, Puppy. Actually, call me even if you don’t.” She butts her head into your chest and you’re lucky butterflies and heartache don’t actually cause physical damage.

The strangest thing about the following weeks is how normal it is. Yujin broke up with her boyfriend, which everyone on campus seems to know about within twenty four hours, and she’s not speaking with Wonyoung but they're not over over, somehow. But other than that, nothing seems to change much. You guess the two perpetrators didn't really have much stock to cause a fuss after being the ones at fault, and that weirdly, from Yujin's point of view, not much is different. 

To begin with, she still studies mostly alone, sits at the front of class by herself (in everything except Econ), eats mostly alone, but now she just knows why. It’s probably a damning indicator of how she had really lost the two of them long before she ever knew they were sleeping together. She’s not okay, but over time she’s getting there.

In fact the only difference, one that you try not to make much of a deal about, is you. You’re trying very hard not to become much of anything anyone can label, just present and there for her. The two of you had never spoken about your bumbled confession in your apartment but it doesn't stop you from becoming borderline inseparable by the end of term. 

You’re sitting outside class in the last week before break, talking the mindless dribble most guys seem to, to avoid any actual personal connection to each other regardless of the fact you've known each other for years. 

“Hey, you’re girlfriend’s here,” Door says, nudging you and jerking his chin at something over your shoulder. 

“Yujin isn’t my girlfriend.”

“I didn't say it was Yujin,” he smirks and you turn around. 

Yujin walks up, bag slung over one shoulder, plaid skirt and comfy sweater, hair loose and actively attacking your brain with its swaying. “Am I interrupting?” She says looking between Door’s grin and your definitely-not-dumbstruck face.

“Yes.” “No,” you both reply over the top of each other. 

She just lifts an eyebrow while you glare at him until he agrees to go be interrupted somewhere else. He backpedals a few times, pointing at you but addressing Yujin, “Good luck with Bagels.”

She’s amused and you're betrayed, nothing new. You don’t particularly like the nickname but it seems to make Yujin smile and you’d launch a thousand ships at a guy named Troy, or whatever, to make her smile, so the least you’ll do is get called a Polish baked good every now and then.

She sits beside you, close enough that your shoulders brush, which is probably accidental and leans back on the wall, skirt fanning out under her.

“I was looking for you.”

“Oh,” you reply, still trying not to stare at her legs, a truly brilliant and suave response, you should try poetry sometime. By this stage you're not sure if she thinks you're just an imbecile or has accepted the fact you’re actually a charismatic genius until she comes within twenty feet of you. Either way she takes mercy;

“I thought you might have left campus already?”

“For break, nah not yet.”

“Oh,” now she’s the one waxing lyrical, fiddling with the straps on her bag and looking down. “I thought maybe we could do something.”

Your brain, barely functioning as it is, comes to a screeching halt. You’ve hung out with Yujin plenty of times, you see each other most days but the way she phrases it and the way you’re deliberately misinterpreting it, makes this seem like a different caliber of question. Your cerebrum starts functioning again, very slowly.

“Something?” Good one.

“You know, something,” she glances at you from under huge lashes. 

“Oh well that clears it up, thanks Puppy.” What the fuck are you doing? 

“Yeah, you know since we don't have class, unless you’re busy with something or don’t want to or something… I’m saying something a lot.”

Technically, you are busy, you do have plans and you are doing something, so naturally because you are also an idiot, you tell her that.

“I can’t.”

Her expression flickers, an old wound, used to the disappointment and you're scrambling to reverse it. “No, that came out wrong.”

“It’s fine, honestly,” she lies and you both know it. 

“I didn’t mean I don’t want to.”

“Okay,” she looks away

“I have plans.” God you're dumb.

“I get it.”

“With my friends.”

“Yep.”

“Camping.” That makes her look up.

“Camping?”

“Yeah.”

“Voluntarily?” 

“Yes, that's how hobbies work,” you laugh.

“Sleeping outside in the cold and dirt is not a hobby, it’s a punishment.”

“Fine, I won’t ask you to come,” the words are out of your mouth before you've really thought it through. She’s still and you cough, “But like, you could if you wanted to.”

“You did just hear me say I thought camping was a form of torture, correct?”

“Yes”

“Just checking, continue.”

You’re rubbing a hand through your hair, specifically not looking at her, because if you look at her, you’ll see her smiling and then you’ll turn into a dimwit again. You need to not fuck this up. 

“It’s just a couple of us, two nights. It's actually by a lakehouse owned by Door’s parents but we usually camp nearby, he claims to be able to fish and cook it over a fire. I've never seen any evidence of that but only a few of us have died from food poisoning over the years so it's probably safe… statistically.”

“You’re really selling this.”

“You could bring Liz, so it’s you not,” you wave your hand between the two of you, “you know.”

“Not what?”

“Nothing.”

“No, I want to hear it,” she’s grinning.

“Shut up, you’re not invited anymore.”

“Tell me.”

You exhale, “So it’s not like I'm asking you to come alone with me.”

“But you are asking me to come with you,” and her face is all stupid smiley white teeth, you're not sure if you want to kiss her or put a bag over her head to make it stop.

You are sure, to be clear.

Last time you told her how you felt she was wearing your shirt and holding too many losses in not enough hands and because liking her feels too easy, too right. You’d tried to back off from your feelings to not pressure her since she broke up, to not just become the guy that happened to be next to her when a space opened up. You didn't want to be a substitute, but a choice.

“I’ll ask Liz,” she breaks you from your self-anguished monologue, and your heart is back to doing chest cavity backflips.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool, great, that's rad.”

“Rad?”

“You’re uninvited again.”

“Fine, it’ll just be you, watching Door try to flirt with Liz all weekend by yourself.”

You freeze, horrified.

“You’re invited again, in fact your presence is mandatory. An essential for camping and my sanity, you're not allowed to leave my side all trip.”

“All trip?” She cocks an eyebrow at you.

You’re saved from blushing all the way to the roots of your hair by Door yelling from over where he’d been banished, “HAVE YOU TWO FINISHED FLIRTING YET?”

Yujin laughs, “Just text me the details, I’ll check with Liz. And… thanks for inviting me.”

“Anytime Puppy,” you’re grinning stupidly as well and you practically hear Door sigh from 30 yards away.

The four of you get away fine on the weekend, Liz immediately commandeers the passenger seat beside Door in the name of DJ-ing but the wink she gives Yujin as the two of you slide into the back has you suspicious, and not caring in the slightest. You’re concerned about your friend's ability to drive with his crush beside him, considering his previous nickname inducing incident but she manages to keep him in check while Yujin sits next to you, unnecessarily and amazingly close. She had to sit in the middle next to you she says, her bags needed to go on the seat on the other side, and no one argues the obvious point.

The camping set up itself is a disaster, at least for the pride of man; the girls get their tent up before you and Door, and then sit nearby sipping drinks and offering frankly heinously unhelpful advice until you get it done just prior to sun down. They also start the fire, and cook the ramen since you didn't have time to fish due to the tent incident, and are the only ones who remembered to pack any form of lighting. Door blames you for that one since it was on your list but you claim you’d been distracted while packing, making Liz giggle and Yujin blush. 

After dinner Yujin leans over to ask if you want to go for a walk by the lake and you’re out of your camp chair so fast she has to grab you to stop you from falling into the fire. Door also stands up before being yanked back down by a surprisingly strong Liz and he looks equal parts confused and delighted. 

You’re not that far away down towards the water when she stops and turns toward you, “What did he say?”

“What?” 

“My ex, he talked to you didn’t he? You’ve been acting weird and trying to hide it,” she points at you. 

You freeze and for a second you can only stare at her. You hadn’t told anyone about that, the confrontation outside the library on the Friday before you left. Not Door or Liz and certainly not Yujin, you’d taken the conversation its ugly topic and ugly way it made you feel and tried to bury it to not let it ruin your weekend but Yujin either knew you too well, was a mind reader, or had some other kind of information. Maybe it was a package deal but you weren't going to lie to her in any case. 

“How do you know about that?”

“Wonyoung told me,” which confuses you even further. “She saw him talking to you, or maybe he told her.” Yujin's mouth twists at that thought, “She’s been telling me things lately. I don’t know if it’s just her way of trying to connect again or repent or whatever, to try and help me… with you.”

“With me?”

Yujin ignores your question, “What did he say?”

You look out into the dark, over the water and sigh.

“He said I was convenient,” and continue before Yujin interrupts. “He said you were just with me because I happened to be closest when he messed up. That I was a substitute. For him.”

The words were obviously bullshit. You and Yujin weren’t even together, though you could see how people would misinterpret it considering how close you were. He was just a small, angry, little man, regretting what he had done and lashing out in jealousy or embarrassment since he had lost both Yujin and Wonyoung at the same time. The problem was that his words, as bullshit as they may have been, hit very close to home with a lot of your own insecurities. 

Silence, long enough that you think he might have hit home with Yujin as well, so you turn back to her. She’s staring at you incredulously, emotions flickering across her face faster than you can pick.

“And you believed him?”

“No,” pause, “maybe.”

Yujiin looks down and you step towards her.

“I’m not angry,” she says before you can say anything.

“You kind of look-”

“I’m hurt.” 

Fuck, that’s the worst thing she could have said and you immediately want to drown her ex, and then yourself, in the lake.

“Puppy, you don't have to take anything he says seriously, he has no right to say anything that should upset you after what he did.”

“Him?” She says, looking up at you again, eyes brimming. “I’m upset with you.”

You take it back, this is the worst thing she could have said.

“Me?”

“I told Wonyoung about you, you know? Back before I knew about them… back when I thought she was still my friend.” What the fuck is going on?

“I told her about the restaurant and the library and how you waved at me between classes. I told her you wouldn't stop calling me Puppy and that I hated it,” she scoffs. “You know what she said? ‘If you hate it, why do you keep smiling so much when you talk about him?’” 

“Because I’m so handsome?”

“Shut up, I'm trying to tell you something,” but she smiles so you don't really care. “I didn’t know what to do with all of it. I had a boyfriend and felt so alone, and when you were there it kept being okay again, and I felt guilty and ashamed and I kept trying to ask my ex to do things with me or for me or something just to feel seen but he never would. I didnt know he was fucking Wonyoung of course, but I did know I’d lost him well before he cheated on me and well before you ever came around. It had nothing to do with you.”

She pauses, thinking about what to say or reflecting on what had happened. You were just trying to remember how to breathe.

“You didn’t just fall into an empty space in my life, you already had a place, you’re special to me.” That’s not helping with the breathing thing. “For the longest time you've been acting like someone guilty of a crime, as if you're not allowed to like me, or I’m not allowed to like you just because of what happened and I hate it.”

Ironically, you're not actually surprised that she likes you. You probably knew for a while but you’d shackled yourself down with the idea that being a replacement would demean any feelings you had, that you’d never let yourself believe it until she said the words out loud. 

You’re staring into her eyes and you think you might pass out so you flick down to look at her mouth instead. Huge mistake. Her lips parted and full, breath caught and waiting on you to stop being such a fucking coward. You really want to kiss her.

“Please,” she whispers and you're not sure if you had said that last part out loud or she’s doing the mind reading thing again. Either way, your hands are around her waist and hers are fisted into the front of your jacket pulling you closer, she’s done waiting.

Weeks, months of waiting, yearning, mistaking restraint for politeness dissolve in an instant and you're kissing her like you need her for air, and she’s kissing you like she’s mad it took her confessing to finally get to this point. 

“WOOOOO- arghhh,” comes a very Door-like whoop from the direction of your tents before getting savagely cut off, probably by a Liz-shaped projectile.

You break the kiss but keep your forehead resting against hers, you're breathing again but way too hard now. There’s no pain to speak of, no empty place in her heart or in your impression of yourself in her life. She’s not kissing you just because you’re there and she lost someone, but because she found you, and you her.