Girls Like Girls (Wonyoung x Gaeul)

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Clutching the handlebars with a grip that pulsed with each shaky breath of hers, Kim Gaeul forced herself to pedal away from it all. Denim jacket wrapped around her petite frame, chin-length hair caressing her face as if to soothe her, blood trickling down the open wound from her temple mixing with her tears, Gaeul struggled to look ahead.

Her bicycle zigzagged along the heated asphalt road that seemed to stretch into infinity. It was almost as if it didn’t want to leave—it was almost as if she didn’t want to leave.

But she had to.

Gaeul thought back to the past few days, thought about everything that happened up to this point, and when she remembered the reason why her knuckles were bruised and why her forearm had patches of skin peeled off, she broke further into tears.

This was the day she lost a friend.

This was the day she lost her best friend, Jang Wonyoung.

Hands on the handlebars, knees pumping up to her chest, Kim Gaeul biked against the final few rays of the setting sun that beamed down at her from the horizon. Squinting, she took a deep breath and took it all in: the grill left out in the backyard, the rows of freshly mown grass, the faint hint of petrichor that hung in the air, the occasional chirping of the birds soaring overhead. There was no need to look both ways before crossing narrow streets. There was no need to squeeze her elbows together to avoid bumping into other people. There was no need to burn her lungs to catch the last bus, to wait outside the Asian mart for hours for the half-off sale, or to vomit in a shady back alley in between coffee breaks thanks to another double shift.

This was home. Kim Gaeul was home.

There was something about coming home again, Gaeul thought, trying to put it into words as she cycled past the houses that remained unchanged over the past two years that she was gone. She had never been away before, so she had never been ‘back’ either. She was hoping it would feel grander, tug more at her heartstrings, engulf her deeper into a sense of nostalgia. But all that filled Gaeul’s mind were the faces of people she prayed she would never bump into during her temporary return, all the places she might want to visit again if she had the time and the money, and how she was going to survive seven days living under her parent’s roof again.

Speaking of the devil, her phone vibrated in her pocket.

“ Eomma? Why are you calling?” Gaeul uttered as she squeezed her phone between her chin and neck. “I haven’t been gone a while—.”

“You haven’t been home for years and the first thing you do is leave?” her mother yelled, nearly shattering her phone’s poor little speaker. “Where are you headed off to?”

“Relax, eomma. I’m just … I’m just visiting a friend,” Gaeul replied. The idea was sound in her mind, but verbalizing it made her chest tighten. “Just going to say hi. That’s all.”

Her mother sighed, and immediately after, Gaeul could already hear her chopping up vegetables in the background again. “What am I going to do with you? Just take care, alright? You looked so … tired, honey. Not the jetlag type of tired. You should get some rest while you’re on break. Maybe we can all go somewhere together as a family again?”

Gaeul wasn’t sure how to respond to that. She wasn’t really the type to have these kinds of conversations with her mother—or with anyone. But as the front lawn of her destination came into view, she parked that thought for now. “Sure, sure. I’ll … I’ll talk to you later! Love you—bye!”

Before her mother could get another sermon in, Gaeul ended the call and slipped her phone back into one of her jacket’s pockets.

Slowing down to a stop, Gaeul let her bike collapse onto the grass as she stared up at the house in front of her. She couldn’t believe it. It looked exactly the same. The same way she remembered it whenever she biked, or jogged, or ran towards it. Same ivory- and cream-colored walls. Same creaky wooden porch. Same garland that hung by the door all year round.

Jang Wonyoung’s house.

Gaeul took five steps to the side and leaned against one foot, taking a peek down the path to the backyard. She thought of it. She considered surprising her, sneaking in through the door around back. Sighing, she shook her head. “Some things you need to face the right way, Kim Gaeul.”

But what was she even going to say when she saw her again? What would come out of her lips first? An apology? A declaration—‘I’m home’? A joke to lighten the mood?

Gaeul wasn’t too sure, but fortune favored the bold—so she walked up to Wonyoung’s front door and knocked three times. Each rap of her knuckles against the heavy wood sounded a tad too demanding for the short girl, making her second guess her decision of coming here in the first place.

In moments, the knob twisted. In mere seconds, the door creaked open.

Gaeul held her breath. “Hi, um, Won—.”

“Who the fuck are you?”

Gaeul’s body tensed at the sound of a deeper voice replying to her. As the origin of this voice stepped out into the late afternoon light, she managed to take a good look at him.

Pronounced Adam’s apple. Unblemished pale skin. Hawaiian shirt parted by the shoulders with nothing underneath. Half-baked abs jutting out. The man in front of her leaned with his elbow against the doorframe as he stooped down to meet Gaeul’s gaze. “Are you one of her friends or something?”

“S-Sorry, I think I have the … wait, this is … the Jang’s home, right?”

The man smirked, and Gaeul just wanted to rip that shit-eating grin off his face in a heartbeat. “Depends which Jang. There’s, like, three Jang’s I know in this entire sub—.”

“Wonyoung. Jang Wonyoung. I’m here to see her.”

“Hoonie? Who’s that?”

Gaeul perked up, fingers relaxing now by her sides. She wanted to step past this ‘Hoonie’ fellow to meet that voice—that same mellow voice—but he was blocking the entire doorway.

Peeking out from underneath one of the man’s arms, a girl in a striped top stepped forward, and in an instant, Gaeul felt her entire face melt. “Oh my god … you … unnie?”

Gaeul smiled, extending her arms to the side. Wonyoung wasted no time and jumped right into her for a tight embrace.

Swaying her unnie from side to side, Wonyoung held her by the waist. “God, unnie, you’re … you’re here. You’re home?”

Gaeul pouted, running her fingers through her hair. “That wasn’t the reaction I was hoping for. Guess I need to make a second entrance.”

Wonyoung laughed in an unladylike way—the way Gaeul had always managed to evoke from her when they were alone. It was refreshing to hear it once again. It was refreshing to see her like this once again. “Right! Right, this is um, this is Sunghoon. He’s my boyfriend.”

Boyfriend.

As Wonyoung released herself from Gaeul and returned to Sunghoon’s side, Gaeul watched as her boyfriend wrapped an arm around her, digging his fingers into the side of her bare navel, and lifted his chin up in acknowledgement. It was then that Gaeul understood a core theme of returning home.

Some things never change, but some people do.

Boyfriend. The word kept playing back in her head like a broken record, even as Wonyoung showed her in and Sunghoon went to grab a beer. As the two girls sat by the edge of the countertop in her kitchen, Gaeul couldn’t make sense of it.

They’ve never talked about boys before. Or, well, maybe they have. Just not like this. They’ve never talked dating. They’ve never talked looking for a relationship. So when Gaeul glanced up from her hunched position to see Wonyoung with that same old smile on her and that same old way her hair fell perfectly down her shoulders, Gaeul couldn’t fathom the thought that she was possibly not the same old friend she once had.

Who was Gaeul to blame? Two years is enough time for many things to happen—Gaeul would know. It wouldn’t be impossible for Wonyoung to have tried new things, to have gotten into different groups, and to have met new people.

But really—out of all the people, someone like Sunghoon?

Gaeul wanted to raise the topic, but she was too distracted by her best friend. They didn’t have any paintings around the house, but Gaeul could have sworn Wonyoung was framed like one as she dangled her feet off the surface. Her dark caramel hair. The two beauty marks on her face that Gaeul thought looked like an incomplete constellation. The tiny scar on her lower lip that she got when she catapulted off her bike when she was twelve. If returning home was supposed to be nostalgic, then Jang Wonyoung was the museum of Gaeul’s life.

She couldn’t look at her without remembering everything they shared together.

The smell of nicotine was what brought her back to reality. “Since when did you smoke?”

Wonyoung took a deep breath and blew a cloud of fumes into Gaeul’s face. “Since college, unnie. Everyone does, are you kidding me?”

Gaeul could only smile endearingly. She wasn’t about to lecture the younger girl on vices—she was no stranger to them. Clearing her throat, she eyed Wonyoung’s pack of convenience store cigarettes and scooted towards the other girl. “Light me one too, will you?”