paradoxical

like all good things, it comes in pairs: right and left cleats, metal cherubic bookends, your mother’s pearl earrings, and an yujin with a friday night party. 

of course, given the propensity for parental derelict and the general lack of privacy at the an residence, these events always seem to happen at your house. not that you mind; the company is nice. big houses tend to haunt, and each empty room is its own ghost. 

you all clinched the home game against passaic and yujin used her allowance to get a cheap keg from her older cousin who works at the liquor store on dover street. with a passing - and brief - discussion about the merits of asking forgiveness instead of permission, you found out just minutes before the game that yujin had invited nearly the entire school to your house in the event of a win. which you all did. as you all usually do. 

(now, you stand in your kitchen, the one filled to the brim with rowdy college kids, nursing a half-empty solo cup and eyeing the pods of people that disperse throughout your living room.) 

there are people here you’ve never seen. you’re not entirely sure they know you either, though it doesn’t really matter, you suppose.

leeso and liz are loitering near the couch, desperate to call dibs on the open space left by any unlucky soul who decides to get up and get a refill. yujin and gaeul, seemingly the paradox of one another tied together with a red string, linger by the fireplace mantle and eye the people around them - their touches growing more and more courageous as their presence seems to slip into the background. luda and bona both sit on the stairs with cans of coke in their hands, the aluminum crinkling under her heavy grasp of feral skittishness and insatiable longing. wonyoung is running late. you haven’t seen rei yet. 

you digest them all in small doses, keeping an eye on everyone while maintaining the charade of having fun, your lips itching for a smoke. you top off your cup with splashing beer from a too-fast spigot and head to the patio through the sliding glass door. 

the waft of cool air that breathes into the living room bites at your thighs, left exposed by your pink miniskirt, and you quickly shut the door behind you once you’re steady on the deck. you toe off your heels with a sigh and kick them to the side. 

the wood grain is rough against the backs of your upper thighs when you sit on the top step that leads down into the sprawling backyard. the green is frosted and faded with the night, only the flickering porch light illuminating the space. your cup is abandoned beside you, teetering against the slightly uneven wood warped by montreal’s notorious winters. you reach into the nearly useless pocket of your miniskirt and fish out your lighter and the dwindling pack of american spirits, inching one out of the flimsy carton and lighting it swiftly. 

your t-shirt isn’t enough to keep you warm - it certainly yields to the goosebumps prickling along your arms, but it doesn’t matter. the smoke in your lungs distracts you from the chill; the heat in your stomach and the mess in your head keep you low. 

wonyoung arrives, using the back gate to enter. the fence door opens and shuts with a metallic clank that echoes across the yard and you watch her from the porch. 

you watch wonyoung the way you might a zoo animal: skittish and silent when unaccompanied by her closest confidante, traipsing across the wet lawn in search of her missing half. a hand severed from a body will always try to crawl its way back. 

you know that wonyoung is more than yujin, though. you might be the only one that knows this. you know that wonyoung is independent - fiercely individual - though her loyalty is often disguised as servitude. her honest, artery-tearing love is shrouded in a cloak of capitulation. 

perhaps the most violent thing you can do to jang wonyoung is think that she is nothing without an yujin. 

only you know that look, the one that wonyoung carries with her as she approaches the porch; only you can distinguish subjugation from devotion. only you understand that wonyoung is hopelessly in love with a girl who doesn’t love her back. you only know this because the two of you are one in the same, born from the same litter, the same black spot of doubt on your chests, placed a little to the left:

you are in love with rei. 

rei, who often finds herself waking up naked in your bed but sets up camp across the locker room to change. 

rei, who drags you into empty janitor’s closets with a cheshire cat grin but who won’t go on a date. 

rei, who fell asleep in your lap during a saturday night movie at your place, only to clear her throat upon waking up while putting as much distance between the two of you as she could. 

that rei. that same rei that won’t call it love. that same rei that chokes on sentimentality. you’re stuck with half-chewed feelings and a voice that doesn’t work. you’re stuck whispering i love you in your head while rei is on top of you, kissing you, marking you, instead of speaking it aloud. 

you self-flagellate in the backyard with a cigarette in your hand and angry splotches of introductory frostbite on your shins. wonyoung ascends the stairs with her hand on the rail. 

“hey-” she breathes as she crests the top. you lean your body sideways to account for the feet beside you. “yujinie’s inside?” 

“mhm,” you respond around the filter in your mouth, your dizzying inhale bringing the ash at the end to life. you exhale through your nose and shudder at the dry burn it creates. you feel like a dragon when you do it. “she’s with gaeul in the living room.” 

you catch wonyoung’s grimace, however brief. she smiles, something that hopefully conveys sympathy, something akin to similitude. she smiles back, hesitantly, minutely, before continuing on and entering the house through the slider door. 

god help her, you think. at least you don’t have anyone to compete with. at least rei seems to only have eyes for you, regardless of her self-proclaimed -and nullified - relationship status. little victories. 

you wait until your cigarette melts to nothing in your hand. you think about lighting another, spending the evening shivering and inhaling, but shake it from your mind. instead, you rub the butt against the dewy wood and flick the ashy orange remnants into the backyard, buried in the grass with perfect aim. 

a mental note for yourself: whatever you do, you refuse to think about rei. 

you refuse to think about the girl you still haven’t seen yet, who might be ditching altogether. you don’t think about what the absence means, how it translates into the steady thrum of disinterest. how it strikes a match and sets fire to your hopes of deluding yourself with each sideways glance you catch from across the room. 

instead, you finish your drink and feel the burn in your throat. 

instead, you bring your empty cup inside and throw it away. 

instead, you change the music on the stereo system above the mantle, verify that your feet are still attached to your body, and dance in the center of the room. 

the lights are dim and orange, a nice pairing to the sudden heat in the house. bodies on bodies, toes on toes, and everyone’s squeezed onto the makeshift dance floor in the middle of your first-floor colonial. you’re burning alive in the center, dizzy and delirious, aggravating and overstimulating every nerve receptor in your brain in order to keep your thoughts away from rei. 

you’re hot and panting by the time the music dies down, by the time everyone disperses into their own clouds of exhaustion and drunken incoherencies. you’re lingering in corners and drifting through the kitchen as people begin to leave for the night, the second hand on the proudly displayed grandfather clock wavering beside the 5, well past midnight. 

it isn’t until the capacity is halved that you lay eyes on a familiar face. 

rei has arrived, shifting hesitantly by the entryway, making room for those exiting and tipping her shoulders inwards to avoid being knocked into. her arms are folded across her chest, though it isn’t in defiance. it isn’t in anger or frustration, but rather thoughtfulness. it’s as if she’s tonguing an idea that she can’t quite bear to spit through her teeth. 

you don’t move. it’s one of your more interesting traits when it comes to rei. how similar you are to a deer, a spotted fawn, still learning about the world and ignorant to the sudden change from grass to asphalt. how similar you are to a tiny thing in the middle of the road being blinded by lights it doesn’t understand. in the mornings, after their brief tristes and one-sided devotions, how similar you become to the creature left bleeding in the street with no one around to hold it. 

“hi,” you finally mumble, and your voice carries far in the newly emptied space. surrounded by rubble, by evidence, and your pinky toe grazes against a forgotten cup. you left your shoes outside. 

“hi,” rei responds with equally measured hesitancy, your eyes flitting around the room. 

“i didn’t see you at the party, did you just get here?”

“yeah.” she scratches at the back of her neck. you have never seen her look so… nervous? “i rode my bike. took longer than i thought.”

you nod, taking in the lack of forehead shine, the level chest, the upper thighs un-twitching beneath black jeans. she walked here. that’s why it took so long. you say nothing. 

you sigh and run a hand through your hair, a tangled mane of dusk, fingers catching at the knots just past your shoulders. though you just caught your breath, you feel winded again, like you’ve been submerged underwater. or waterboarded. either way. 

you can’t bring yourself to look at rei any longer. Instead, you drink in the damage left by the night, the mess that sprawls itself across the floor of your living room. you put your hands on your hips, feeling the swell of bone beneath your fingertips. 

“well, party’s over but you’re welcome to stay.” 

“is that okay?” 

you furrow your eyebrows, feeling them sew together with swiftness. “of course, why wouldn’t it be?” 

rei avoids the question. “do you need some help cleaning up?”

“you don’t have to do that,” you say passively, moving into the kitchen to grab the box of garbage bags and setting it on the counter. rei follows her like she’s lost. 

“i know i don’t,” she says, her eyes wet and blue. you swallow. The kitchen is too hot. “i just want to, okay?”

you nod, afraid that your voice will break or beg; you don’t know which one is worse. you push the box of garbage bags closer to rei, watching as the brunette extracts two and turns on her heel without another word. you feel like you’re suffocating.