PARITY

Within some reasonable tolerance, the two are carbon copies. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Doppelganger, twin, deadringer - they always tell you, they don’t see it.

But when they stand together it always comes across like two shadows stitched into one silhouette; the slope of their noses, their mouths; the way their hair cascades down past their shoulders.

You’ve learned to recognize the twitch at the corner of their lips before a laugh - how they speak in the same inflection and pitch and tempo, the same cadence coloring all their syllables. Even in their figures there is something uncannily familiar: that petite stature, that grace; they both have perfect posture, an ingrained elegance, like something handed down generation to generation. And of course - the height. The hair. The eyes. The same-damned-smirk.

Here’s a hypothetical: if Sana’s DNA, then Miyeon’s RNA. They’re both two separate ways of reading the same thing, and they both have it in them to transcribe the same hot load of proteins over all their pretty faces.

“Oh, that’s like a sex joke,” Miyeon says to Sana, frowning slightly, “right?”

“I don’t know.” Sana hums. “Protein… like sperm?”

You sigh, rub your thumb at your temple. This is why, normally, you wouldn’t take ditzy to bed, but there’s all this history between you and Sana that proves otherwise. The dirty truth is: you’ve been taking ditzy to bed for years. And Miyeon’s right there. She’s all bright eyes, blonde hair, tiny little waist, the perfect height to get two fingers in her cunt and the rest of her in your lap without you even needing to shift your arm into something more uncomfortable. God forbid.

She pulls back the curtain of silk-glossed-hair spilling over her cheek and tucks it neatly behind her ear. Okay, fine. So maybe you really do have a type.

“Yeah,” Miyeon decides. “I think that’s a good pun. Cute.”

She glances sideways at Sana; something flashes between them, imperceptible. They’ve been doing this sorta thing for a long time - long before they ended up in their current living arrangement. This machine of synchronized, unvoiced communication.

“Cute,” echoes Sana, delighted, and she lets her eyes flick back to yours. “Baby, are you, like, gonna give us lots of protein?”

“First of all, we’re fast approaching the point of diminishing returns on the whole protein spermaestria,” you muse, wryly. Sana beams. “And again, the point I’m trying to make, Sana: you two are identical.”

“Not in spirit,” says Miyeon, automatically. “Or intellect. Or appearance, either.”

“You can’t just claim that,” says Sana, matter of fact. “He means physically. I have bigger tits and a better ass.”

There’s no argument from your end. And not only because the cab driver hits a speed bump or a pothole or perhaps a small child way too quickly that sends you all lurching together into the seatbelts.

Miyeon finds a good hold in the handle over the door - it saves her - and you wind up steadying Sana. For a split second, it’s both their shoulders leaning on yours: Sana, then Miyeon, then Sana. Back and forth. Back and forth. The three of you still end up sprawled halfway out of the seats and onto each other in the cramped cab, tangled all together.

"Please, explain it then,” implores Sana, hushed slightly. “Go ahead, I’m sure Miyeon’s dying to hear it.”

“Look, it’s not a perfect one to one mapping,” you say, running your hand through your hair and putting on your patient professor-in-front-of-the-class face. “For example: Miyeon’s cuter-”

“ Thank you,” chirps Miyeon, sweetly sardonic, before you can even append anything else to the statement. Sana’s already there with a noise of mild protest.

“I mean, I’m a full inch and a half taller than you.”

“So?”

“That’s an unfair advantage. You’ve gotta be the dumbest person I know.”

“Funny,” chides Miyeon, swiveling her gaze onto Sana. “You could barely talk when we were fucking your brains out on your birthday. He’s dating you, not me, remember? If anything, you’re the one sporting an unfair advantage.”

“Okay, well,” Sana counters, reasonably, “when you can barely get a sentence out from choking on my boyfriend’s cock, who the hell is supposed to call it?”

You ignore that. Miyeon is having more difficulty; her face has flushed cherry red and her hand’s white-knuckle-gripping the side of the cab’s passenger door.

“For what it’s worth,” you cut in, placidly, “I don’t think there’s any clear answer.”

“Nonsense,” they both reply, simultaneously and satisfied - like wind up toys. And that’s the way the conversation tends to go when you get them alone like this. Identical, you pause to think again after spilling out from the back of the car and onto the curb outside the girls’ apartment.

All the things they say are word-for-word - they walk the same, eat the same, smile the same, tilt their heads the same. In those moments where you don’t speak, it feels like watching some two-headed monster, an entity constructed from equal parts of both. And it isn’t just the physicality at play. They’ve got that eerie ability to read each other, speak for each other. It’s strange: their habits, the way their eyebrows arch, the set of their shoulders. It all syncs right up, matches seamlessly.

It’s really fucking uncanny.

“Um.” Sana twists one slim wrist back and forth until the key turns in the lock. “So, is it, like, wrong of me that I kinda just wanna skip the dinner part of this and watch my roommate get wrecked in the middle of our living room?”

“Depends,” you answer, before you can let yourself dwell too much.

“Just a complete and utter carpet dive,” Sana says, shouldering the door open and flipping on the lights. “It’d serve her right. She’s being annoying.”

Miyeon scoffs, sticks out a bare, pale leg - it ends in a nail polished fire engine red, the strap of a stiletto sandal - and blocks your way inside. “Hey,” she protests, lightly. You are not the only object in the equation - you are merely an item to be held against them; it’s not about you, not in its most abstract shape. Miyeon and Sana are competing - vaguely for your affection, but more so just for affection in general. It’s an ego thing, if nothing else.

“I’m an angel. I’m precious.”

“Get your pretty feet out of his face,” warns Sana.

“Ugh,” says Miyeon. And then, “so short-tempered when you’re not getting away with everything.”

“Whatever, princess.” Sana gestures, airy and flippant. “In any case: fuck off, or go get fucked.”

This has become some kind of weird custom, admittedly. Miyeon does exactly as her best friend requests. She floats down the hallway and toward her room.

“Can’t get good service around here anymore anyway,” is what she tosses over her shoulder. Her fingers run up the door frame to her room and hang there, briefly, before she glances sideways back. You and Sana, now giving her your deservedly undivided attention. There is no split focus, no point of overlap. Her hair falls loose past her shoulders; her shirt clings a little to the muscles of her arms, her ribs. The point of contact between her skirt and her upper thighs. Those impossibly big eyes. She’s gorgeous. You rarely ever let yourself forget that. There’s something devastating about the set of her face, about how her body is absolutely fucking perfect, all curving lines and smooth planes - tits that fit right in your palm, the dip of her stomach, the pretty shape of her ass - she’s tiny, and in a way, that means you can do anything to her and manage to get away with it. She’ll let you. She’llask you to do it all again.

“You two are more than welcome to follow along, if you feel so inclined,” Miyeon adds before she opens the door to her room, steps through, and lets it shut behind her.

"Yeah.” Sana runs her tongue over her top lip, staring you straight in the eye. Her smile is slightly predatory, all sharp teeth. “If you’re so inclined.”

-

(For anyone wondering about things like premise or backstory, here’s a useful memory:

Sana has a new roommate. They’ve been living together for two, three months. She’s still not over the fact you didn’t ask her to move in, and you’re still not ready for it. Your answer hasn’t changed. You like your apartment the way it is; the two of you need space; it’s what the kids call cohabital parity and no, the ring’s not in your wallet and it’s not even bought yet; stop nagging me. It’ll happen when it happens.

Anyway,

It’s one of those plainly beautiful evenings in early July or August - a weekend probably: the living room is bathed in the sort of low, radiant sunset that can go on forever, all of summer stretched out, leisure and sunshine. Sana had talked her way into getting you to take her somewhere highbrow and a little out of your budget. She can talk her way into just about anything; that’s her brand, her bad habit, her good fortune.

“We’re not going to be able to get our tickets,” you’re explaining into the loud blare of a hair dryer. And to paraphrase, “what the fuck is the point of making reservations if we’re going to be so reprehensively late?”

Sana’s juggling the curling iron while fumbling with an eyelash curler and applying mascara and rearranging earrings all at the same time, and you think about reminding her, again, that it doesn’t matter what she looks like if you never actually, you know, leave - but then the hair dryer switches off.

“Hey.” Sana ignores the concern and swivels to ask which earrings match which necklace - two pairs are laid across the countertop; they look exactly the same; you love her, desperately, but for the record, you’ve never been any good at telling jewelry apart. Neither the knowledge-set nor the motivation; she looks fucking gorgeous in everything regardless-