Chapter Text
Jisu looks down on her phone for the third time in two minutes but time doesn't fly, it's still 5:44pm.
She's standing on the road opposite to Aromas Café, somehow blinded by its flickering neon lights. She starts counting the people going in the shop. From afar, she discusses whether she should follow suits.
A part of her feels weak, like she's lost the lifelong fight against Yeji again. She knows the girl is in there, all cozy and warmed up from the fresh hot coffee touching her lips.
Well, she might feel weak for even entertaining the idea of talking with her again, but above all, she's mad and petty. So she stands there, knowing that Yeji is probably dying to know if she'll be blessed with her presence. She hasn't decided yet.
Having the girl open up to her yesterday pulled on her heartstrings, more than she'd allow herself to admit. Even though she swears to have moved on to clearer skies, the infinite possibilities of what-ifs torture her.
It's true, after all. What if things had happened differently? But it's too late to rewrite the past.
So Jisu hides her hands in her pockets and waits for a divine illumination to tell her what to do in this moment of confusion. Because if there's one thing Jisu gets the chance to write now, it's the future. It could be one where they never see each other again, or one where Jisu doesn't open the door, but still unlocks it.
As if on cue, an idea gets to her. Twelve people have gone in since she's been standing here with the Aromas Café sign continuing to randomly flicker. She closes her eyes and counts to twelve. If once she opens them to the neon lights being pink rather than navy blue, she'd get in.
Her eyes open.
Pink.
And so faith had decided. Today, Yeji was in luck.
As Jisu rearranges her bag on her shoulder, she reassures herself. Her task is easy: she'll get in, claim her free coffee, let Yeji blabber whatever bullshit excuse she came up with, then she'll flee the scene. Free coffee was always welcomed anyway, right?
With a sigh, she crosses the road and pushes the door of the shop. A little bell rings to signal her entrance. She immediately spots a Yeji who was already eyeing the door, at the back. Jisu can see the wave of relief crashing over her and she finds joy in knowing she tormented her during those minutes of waiting.
Jisu walks to Yeji's booth. It is quite dimly lit, but she wouldn't be one to complain about darkness. She puts her stuff down and slides on the seat in front of Yeji.
"You came," Yeji almost whispers with a smile, in disbelief. "Hi."
Jisu remains silent as her attention drifts to the wooden table between them. Yeji had scattered pages and pages of handwritten work all over the table.
The gymnast clears her throat, sitting back on the banquet with her arms crossed on her chest.
"Oh, sorry. I was just working on something. It's for a class."
Jisu hums, appearing uninterested as Yeji discards her homework to the side.
"You said coffee's on you, right?" Jisu finally lands her eyes on Yeji's face, and oh how that proved to be a terrible mistake.
Yeji had let her black hair down to cup her face and grace her shoulders, with thin round glasses hanging at the tip of her rosy nose. She harbored light eyeshadow, some eyeliner and her lips were coated with bright pink gloss. No Instagram feed scrolling could do justice to such a pretty face.
A lot of time had passed, and Yeji definitely wasn't the same person Jisu once knew. It made her wonder how much remained and how much was buried deep or disappeared. Undeniably, the girl had grown into stronger features, although still as charming as they were before.
It makes Jisu giddy inside. She must've also changed a lot for the brunette to not recognize her. The blonde dye surely wasn’t helping either. Well, she's glad to have left that girl behind, in her past. Now, her face might've blossomed, but her soul had matured just as much.
Jisu cusses herself out when she finds herself staring shamelessly. Yeji's answer fell into deaf ears, so she frowns and tries to play it cool—like the soft ambient music of the café was too loud for her to hear properly. "What did you say? Speak up."
The striker complied. "I said, what do you want me to get you?"
"Black coffee. Tall."
Yeji appears to be surprised. "Oh, that's bitter. Not a sweet lover then, I assume."
Jisu scoffs. "I'm an athlete, I have to watch what I eat."
"So, you do have a sweet tooth, you just don't fall for the temptation?" The girl leaned over the table, settling her chin on her palms and scrutinizing Jisu for any form of reaction. She's empty-handed. "Do you like caramel? Chocolate, maybe? Or, I could get you something salty if you prefer."
"I like black coffee."
Yeji finally stands up, shaking her head, and goes at the back of the long line towards the counter.
Jisu releases the breath she'd been keeping in her lungs. As she waits for Yeji to come back, she becomes fidgety. This is way more mentally taunting than she wanted it to be.
She tries to distract her mind, tapping her fingers on the table, before taking her phone out to scroll her timeline until she no longer finds entertainment in that too. She goes through her texts before messaging her girlfriend to ask what she'll be up to tonight.
As the gymnast grows more and more impatient, she turns around to check Yeji's progress in the queue. She was only halfway done.
With a sigh, Jisu starts looking around again. Her attention lands back on the table, more precisely on Yeji's stack of assignments.
She takes a page and reads, leaving it to her unconsciousness to compliment the girl's beautiful handwriting.
Apparently Yeji is working on some constellations. Jisu doesn't know if she's doing some research for a project, or just reworking on some previous classes, but she takes the pen the brunette left and scribbles on the corner of the page.
Her face breaks out in a little smile, she just can't help but feel a bit silly. She tries to act fast, rearranging the stack as it was once she's done scribbling, and putting everything back in place as if she had never done anything.
When Yeji comes back, after what seemed like an eternity, she places the order in front of Jisu who's startled by the sudden appearance. "Here's for you."
Jisu is even more surprised when she sees a plate with a caramel and a chocolate cookie placed next to her cup of coffee. She mentally sighs, trying to ignore the gesture.
Nodding thank you, she sips on her black coffee. The bitterness catches up to her, and she winces a little. Frankly, she hates black coffee but she had to save face, obviously. Her hand goes to grab a cookie, almost instinctively.
"Chocolate's the winner, okay, noted," Yeji remarks, continuing to write down on the reading she was working on previously. "Chocolate is my favorite too."
For a couple of minutes, they don't address each other. Yeji keeps working, and Jisu watches her, sitting with her shame as she takes another bite of her cookie.
"So, are you not going to talk? I don't have all day," she finally addresses.
"You don't seem very talkative."
"I'm not the one supposed to do the talking."
"No, I don't want to just talk, I want us to have a conversation." Yeji puts her pen down and takes a big gulp of her own “Americano”. Truly, it was hot chocolate. She also hates coffee.
"I don't think you're in a position to want anything."
Yeji coughs, quickly moving on to a different topic. "Where's your Kappa jacket? It's not often that you don't wear it."
"Someone trashed it,” Jisu bit.
Yeji looks down for a second, then asks, “You have other ones. Don’t you have like… five?”
“Did you make me come here to interrogate me?" The gymnast frowns and lightly tilts her head.
"No, it's just..." Yeji hesitates to voice her thoughts. "Nevermind, I'll start with my apology. I know sometimes I can get a little ahead of myself and say or do things on impulse, so for that I apologize. I also didn't want to upset you yesterday when I said the way you present yourself bothers me, but since we decided to lay it all on the table, I'd rather tell you upfront what I think. It's just that with you I can't help but think a lot of the reputation you uphold is just pretense. At times you seem to behave like you think you're above everyone, but then at other times... you... present yourself differently."
Jisu chortles bitterly. "You have some nerve," she starts, pushing the unfinished plate towards Yeji before fidgeting with the hem of her custom Adidas tracksuit.
"I'm just being honest with you. I feel like you pretend to be this girl that's obsessed with the attention and you veil yourself behind this persona that's cocky and egotistical. Truly, I think you're soft."
"I'm not sure whether you're calling me fake or weak, but in both cases it's very funny to me. Especially coming from someone who hides she's been with girls."
The striker instantly freezes. Her face falls as she justifies, "What? No." Her tone becomes harsher.
"No you're not hiding it or no you're not into girls?"
"Just no. What would even make you say that?"
"Observations."
"Just because you like girls doesn't mean everyone has to."
"You better say it until you believe it, because it sounds to me like you're still in denial." Yeji frowns but Jisu quickly continues, "Looks like we're both fake, then, I guess."
"That's not-"
"Whatever." She rolls her eyes to show her growing impatience. "Is that all you wanted to say?"
Yeji's eyes drift away before she answers, "Honestly, I don't know." She clears her throat. "You're not the easiest to talk to."
"You're saying you want us to find a common ground, but you keep taking these digs at me."
"Just because I'm trying to make amends, doesn't mean I won't speak my mind," she rectifies with raised eyebrows. "You know, the one conclusion I've come to accept is that we'll probably never get along. You're just in your universe and I'm in mine. But we don't really need to be friends, actually. We can just be cordial. In a sisterhood, you can't get along with everybody either, so that's logical."
"What do you mean?" Jisu sips on her coffee again.
"It's the same with families. You're not always on good terms with everyone, but once in a while, you can get the act up for the purpose of the family because we're looking at the bigger picture. I guess that's what I'm asking from you now." Yeji tries to get Jisu's cold glare on her, but the latter keeps it lowered as she adds, "I'm very determined and resilient, and I really want to get in... so from my end, I'll make the effort."
Jisu keeps quiet, this time rather because Yeji's train of thoughts had little she could contradict. Instead, what she had to settled with herself is: does Yeji deserve it? Should she really put herself through such a hassle again?
Well, she can't say Yeji hasn't been determined or hasn't tried everything to express her interest in the sorority. Although she hates herself for it, Jisu makes a mental note of that quality.
When she finally finishes her coffee and looks up, she's greeted by Yeji's hopeful and expecting gaze. A gaze so soft, yet so demanding and vibrant.
Defeated, Jisu can only slip a small, "Okay." Not forgetting to add, "I'll keep that in mind," as to not give her final decision away.
But that proved to be useless. Yeji could see it... she could feel it. They had just implicitly signed off an unspoken pact: the president wouldn't let their personal matters meddle on Yeji's way into Kappa Delta Phi.
With a smile she tries to surpress, the girl answers back, "Okay." She puts her hand out for Jisu to shake. After a moment of hesitation, the gymnast decides not to.
And then, they remained in silent, with Yeji working as Jisu observed. It lasted for a good twenty minutes until Jisu slipped out the booth in the manner of a ghost, still not uttering a word, and disappearing into the world without saying goodbye.