SERENDIPITY

Before the attraction ferments, Eunbi says, kiss me properly and pull me apart.

or,

Where all your little tragedies begin.

-

If you want to start getting technical, you’re Minju’s plus one to the gala, and that’s already a lot, a lot, a lot to unpack.

She’d gotten whipped into a bad mood that evening before you even had your shoes on, all on account of your apparent inability to distinguish cobalt from azure, and now should anyone have the wherewithal to examine the fabric of her dress, your tie, maybe with a forensic kit, they’d discover the two are not actually matching. If there was any part of you at all inclined toward keeping up appearances, you probably wouldn’t be content with a career in radio broadcast. But here you are, surrounded by actors, actresses, idols, and everyone who thinks the cut of their jaw is just a little better than everyone else’s - the kind of people who feel entitled to time in front of a camera.

Networking, is how Minju ends up pitching it to you, and now it makes the whole thing seem a lot like work and it’s actually kind of exhausting.

It’s not even an open bar either, as she had originally advertised.

You pay - get this - you pay twenty-three dollars for a vodka tonic and it comes with so much ice you’re not totally unconvinced you could build an igloo. So when everything starts to go to shit, nearing the end of drink number one, you’re not even slurring your words. Tipsy, perhaps; just slightly. To the point you can feel it in your fingers. But nothing like a good excuse.

It’s about then that Eunbi navigates her way around the bar - unnerving, enough to make the sweat grow cold.

On account of her being fucking gorgeous, you end up watching her closely: notice first that she’s carrying a pair of heels in her hand, completely barefoot, and you have no idea what that’s about, but you end up more fixated on the fact that she slides herself into the barstool on your left - which comes across as something of an omen, given that the rest are completely unoccupied. It’s only thirty, forty minutes into the event and people are still plenty busy with that thing where they fake smiles at each other until they feel like they fit in, showing, with bare minimal effort, that they too can mingle with entertainment’s elite.

Now, you don’t actually recognize her, not right away that is. The last you’d seen her, she had her hair cut right above her shoulders and its shade was a serious degree blonder than the current iteration - now curtaining her face as she studies the drink menu and flips it over several times in her dainty hands.

After a long minute, she looks up, interrupts the bartender from polishing a piece of glassware, and orders an old fashioned, substitute brandy, leave out the orange peel, with sugar on the rim. If it’s not the usual amendments that give her away, it’s the saccharine-sweet flavor of her voice, lilting in a manner that’s instantly unmistakable.

Eunbi, you’re guessing aloud, a little apprehensive, and immediately you retreat behind the liquor in your glass. She turns to you, slowly, knuckles masking the subtle quirk in her lips at first, before letting her chin rest on the heel of her palm to reveal a flash of her signature hundred-kilowatt smile.

“Oh,” she says, and she’s blinking with clear amusement that you remember her name - as if you could ever forget it, as if these run-ins were somehow infrequent; you’d only both been plotting orbits around the same star that was Minju for the past couple years. Her head tilts, lips parting to ask, “your date ditch you already?”

She’s half-right.

“You break a heel?” you ask her, nodding toward the pair of black t-strap heels she’d tossed onto the bar counter with a defeated sigh.

“Maybe.” Eunbi drags a dark lock of hair back behind her ear. It falls almost immediately back in front of her face and it ends up staying there until the bartender places her drink in front of her. “But my question first.”

For the record, there’s nothing here particularly novel worth dwelling on. It’s always some provocation or another with Eunbi, you remember now, as she holds you with a stare, eyes wide and brilliant; she sails through life all with the confidence of someone very aware of how pretty she is - knows precisely what she can get away with, right down to the letter of the law. The dress hugging tight to her isthmus of a waist is evidence of exactly that - tighter each time you look - so if you’re waiting for her to get it wrong, don’t hold your breath.

“Minju’s having a moment,” you tell her, “it’s not like she doesn’t know where to find me.”

“Hm.” She pauses to take a careful sip of her drink, running her tongue over her bottom lip as she places the glass onto a square napkin. Folds her hands in her lap and asks, “can you explain something to me?”

“If I say no, are you going to ask anyway?”

Eunbi nods to herself, dry laugh telling you it was as rhetorical as you thought. “Seriously, how is it you two are always fighting?”

We’re not always fighting, you want to say, before Eunbi makes a face. She has this uncanny effect on you - raising an eyebrow and tilting her chin as though she were disappointed; the sharp edge to her smile, half challenge, half something far less kind. It could rip truth from the most reluctantly tight-lipped of privacies. “We’re working on it,” you tell her.

“Oh?” she asks, leaning in.

“God, you don’t have to say it like that.” The ice clinks in your glass as you toss it back, finding it lamentably empty. “You make me feel like I have to repeat myself a thousand times - we are,” you add, “we’re working on it.”

“There’s something that keeps you together, clearly,” Eunbi says, pressing her finger to her lips before fixing you with dark eyes and an easy, charming grin.

She has you figured out, to some extent: knows how you’ll slip up for a girl with a pretty smile, prettier eyes, all the sorts of errors you’ll start to allow when you start cataloging the curves of her body, inventorying how they taper impossibly at her waist, flaring again at her hips, her fucking chest, the way they all look under the tight fit of that damn dress-

“The make-up sex really that good, huh?”

You almost, almost choke on the ice cube you’d been sucking to keep yourself entertained.

“Optimistic to think there is any,” you admit, regretting it right away - like think about it: there’s absolutely nothing good that could possibly come of that. “That’s just how it goes.”

Eunbi looks downright triumphant. More than usual. “Oh, sweetie.”

She waves over the bartender and asks him for another whatever it was you were drinking, because she’d hate to see you go dry, and as he’s turning around she shouts over his shoulder, go ahead and make it two, actually. You don’t realize it, but you’re beginning to study her, paying really close attention to all these little details - the sparkle of the bracelet on her slender arm, how it falls a few inches off the corner of her wrist as she gets her hand back in front of her face, raking her nails through all that thick, glossy hair, black as night - you don’t know what the feeling is that rears its head as you watch her, but it’s not completely unwelcome.

“What?” she asks as her eyes flick up to yours to catch you looking at her, closely, not that you’re gawking, but she lets you off the hook like you are - just gestures to the pitiful looking heel on the counter and shrugs. “ It’s not like I have anywhere to be.”

To be honest, it’s not that you lack basic foresight. In fact it’s shockingly easy to predict where this is going. Because here’s a quick behind the scenes tour on how these interactions usually play out: you’ve got your excuses, your trepidations, justifiably - the reality that you’re kind of already in a pretty high profile relationship key among them. And like clockwork, Eunbi readily finds you game for some flustering. Eunbi, who lays it on thick, comments seeped in innuendo and suggestion, whose glances linger perhaps a little long to be a fascinating coincidence. Eunbi, innocence and arrogance entwined, in the filthiest of minds. Eunbi, always with her fingers twirling her hair and wearing something just modest enough that makes it feel like it’s your fault for noticing that her figure is impeccable. You’ve not actually gathered much from your brief conversations other than that she likes to flirt with you, likes it even more when you’ve got your foot in your mouth, and instead of putting you out of your misery, keeps you suspended there, egging you on - this all beyond the fact that you’ve only really managed to learn the many different ways you want to undress Kwon Eunbi.

You want her pressed up against the wall of your apartment, among other places, one of those pleated skirts crumpling to a pile around her knees as she keens for you, and your hand busy sliding up between her thighs.

You want to listen to her sighs as you unfasten each of the white buttons on one of those collared shirts that stretches and aches to keep her chest concealed, how she’d hum in delight as you trail kisses down each new inch of soft pale skin that all would unveil.

You want her in your lap when you fiddle with the latch of her bra until her tits spill out of its lacy fabric (it’s always lacy in your head), and she’s got you gasping for air, smothered, asphyxiated, dying, ascending, it’s all so, so great in theory.

It’s just that - some way or another - Eunbi looks at you like she knows all of that. You’ve been skirting around the issue for months.

“Tell me,” she starts, and suddenly, without warning, she has you under the microscope, reeling you further into the conversation, pulling at loose threads - where is Minju right now, are you still living together, does she help with chores, can you trust her, does she trust you - she grabs a handful of pretzels and watches you intently as you try and remain unruffled, diplomatic - are you generally happy with how things are going, when was the last time you had sex - you’re blindsided by that last one, or something, but that’s out there now, in the open.

“Uh.” Eunbi purses her lips. “You’re kidding.”

You just shrug.

“How long has it been now between you two? Like officially.“

“I’m surprised you don’t already know.”

“Alright.” Eunbi clicks her tongue. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“My fourth year of university, her first,” you explain. Though never before have you felt as crooked about admitting that as you do at this moment. Others had often appreciated something about the impudence of it, but you’re doubting Eunbi’s going to be one of those people.

“Young,” Eunbi states, matter-of-factly. The look on her face says she’s thinking.

“Not that young.”

“You’re twenty-seven.”

“Twenty-five.”

“You’re-” Eunbi’s eyebrow’s knit together like she’s trying to remember something. “Wait, really?”

“Does that bother you?”