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The smell of weed is strong enough that it kind of wants to make Yeji gag, but she doesn’t, instead she awkwardly sits next to Ryujin, and tries not to think about their sides touching.
“Do you ever,” Ryujin asks, curling her lips around the blunt and taking a hit before continuing, “think that maybe I missed you?”
Yeji hadn’t. She’d thought about other things—dating Jaehyun, graduating with honors, being the captain of the track team, and then college had snuck up on her, and she’d moved to Seoul, and Ryujin had been just that—some girl she could have liked if she was brave enough or dumb enough, some girl in high school that she ran into in college all over again. Some girl who smoked weed in the university basement.
“Well,” Yeji carefully replies. “Can I have a hit?”
“You don’t smoke,” Ryujin points out, but she laughs.
“Maybe I do.”
“Fine, maybe you do.”
Ryujin hands it over to her, and Yeji tries not to vomit when she takes a puff and ultimately coughs out most of it. “I don’t smoke,” she states after she’s done coughing and maybe making a fool of herself. Some things never changed around Shin Ryujin, she thinks, and maybe that’s why she’d ran away.
“No, you don’t,” Ryujin agrees, taking the blunt and taking another long drag. Somehow, it feels like they’re talking about something more than smoking weed.
“So,” Ryujin continues. “How’s Jisu?”
Yeji had expected resentment maybe, but not subtle apathy. “Fine.”
“That’s good.” A pause. “I didn’t know you dated girls now.”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry.” Yeji doesn’t know what she’s really saying sorry for, though.
“It’s cool. I knew you were into them, I mean, you dumped Jaehyun like it was nothing, but,” Ryujin shrugs, her words slurring from the high. “Didn’t think you had the balls.”
It’s an attack, but it doesn’t make Yeji angry. Everything comes full circle, anyways. “Yeah, me too.”
“What’s Jisu like?”
“She’s sweet and, like, smart. She speaks English.”
Ryujin laughs, and Yeji gets a little defensive. “It’s not shallow,” she says.
“I didn’t say it was,” Ryujin replies. “Don’t be pissy.”
“I’m not.”
“Okay.”
Yeji doesn’t point out that Ryujin doesn’t sound like she believes her at all, not wanting to fight, not when they were finally here all over again. “You didn’t tell me you were in Seoul,” she says instead. I thought you’d call, she doesn’t add.
Ryujin shrugs. “Well,” she picks at the ashes on the ground. “It’s been a year, and you didn’t go to my grad, so.”
“Oh. Well—“
“—I’m not mad,” Ryujin cuts her off, sounding a little mad. “Anymore, at least. You were busy, I get. I was just some senior in high school, You were a freshman in college. In Seoul. I get it.”
Yeji really wants to explain herself, wants to say it slipped my mind, it was far, it was just some small promises made between kids, but it sounds cruel no matter how she puts it. Yeji wonders if she’s always been a little cruel to Ryujin—wonders if apathy and indifference is worse than anger and hatred, if her brushing things off and being too busy had been a deadweight Ryujin’s been carrying around.
“Sorry,” the older girl says after awhile. “Uh, I mean. I’m here now, you know.”
Ryujin doesn’t reply for awhile, rolling up another blunt. “I know.”
“I should have, I guess.”
“Hm.”
“I was just caught up, it wasn’t—you know—anything bad. Like, I didn’t hate you.”
“No, you didn’t,” Ryujin agrees, lighting the blunt and taking another hit. “I never thought you hated me. I just always thought you were too selfish.”
Yeji winces at her tone—calm, all-knowing, like she was stating a true fact about Yeji. “That’s not fair.”
“It’s not?” Ryujin’s eyes are bloodshot red, and her voice is calm and slow. “If you say so.”
“You’re too high,” Yeji comments, reaching for the blunt.
“Not high enough to take your bullshit,” Ryujin replies, but she hands the blunt over to Yeji anyways. Some things never do change, Yeji decides. She wonders if Ryujin will always be a little pliable for her, always give in just a little bit to her.
Yeji is starting to regret her twin brother’s advice—how Hyunjin had told her this would be good for her, that he’d heard from his friend, who was friends with this girl named Chaeryeong, who apparently was sort-of-maybe-hooking-up with Ryujin or who was just her best friend—that Ryujin was in Seoul for college. Hyunjin had told Yeji to reach out, and here she was now, in the basement of the arts building, holding a blunt, with a maybe-angry Ryujin.
“I don’t really know what to say,” Yeji says, “except that I wish you called.”
“You didn’t call,” Ryujin points out, rubbing her red eyes, and for a moment Yeji thinks she’s crying, but she’s not, Ryujin’s still just high.
“I was adjusting in college. It wasn’t personal.”
“You can’t ignore someone for a year and say it’s not personal.”
“I mean, but it’s the truth.”
“It’s not personal for you, maybe, but it was for me. That’s my truth.”
Yeji feels exhausted all of a sudden, and maybe a little high too, because the room’s stuffy with smoke, and she’s still holding the blunt, and Ryujin’s here—here after a year, here because Yeji finally decided to show up, here, and she’s reminding Yeji of the mistakes and cracks in her psyche.
“Sorry,” Yeji tells her after awhile.
Ryujin scoffs. “Do you mean it this time?”
“Yeah,” Yeji mutely replies. “I do.”
“Okay,” Ryujin says. “If you mean it.”
“I didn’t realise,” Yeji starts, and then stops, but then continues again after taking a deep breath. “How much I missed you. What I did wasn’t right, but I didn’t know any better. I was caught up. Sorry for hurting you.”
“Hm. Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, can’t say much. It’s gonna take time, you know.” Ryujin levels a look at her. “To forgive you, but I still want to.”
“Oh.” That’s more than Yeji expected to be honest. “Thank you.”
“I’m sleepy,” Ryujin comments out of nowhere. “Can you drive me to my dorm? Let’s just talk tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Yeji softly replies. “Come on.” She stands up, and holds her hand out for Ryujin, who to her surprise, takes it. Their fingers don’t intertwine—that would be too intimate and there’s still not enough time between then and now for things to be better just like that—but they do hold hands, and Ryujin’s hand is warm against Yeji’s cold one.
They both walk out of the basement, and make their way outside where the night air is chilly enough to make them huddle a little closer towards each other. They make their way to the parking lot, which is mostly empty save for the cars of some of the night-classes students, and Yeji unlocks her car. They both get in, and Yeji starts the car.
“I’m dizzy,” Ryujin tells her, as Yeji exits the parking lot.
“I’ll drive slow. Where do you dorm?” She asks.
“Baker Hall.”
Yeji stops herself from laughing. “That's ironic.”
Ryujin laughs, but then starts coughing. “Yep.”
The drive is mostly silent, because Ryujin falls asleep. She only wakes up now and then to mumble something to Yeji, and then they’re at Baker Hall, and Yeji is looking at her as if seeing her for the first time, and thinking about all the time they have now to make up for her own mistakes. “Hey,” Yeji says, gently shaking her. “We’re here.”
“Hm?”
Yeji fondly smiles. “We’re here, Ryu.”
“Oh,” Ryujin says, opening her eyes. She leans forward and covers her face for a bit. “I’m so dizzy.”
“I know,” Yeji says removing Ryujin’s seatbelt and her own. “I’ll bring you to your room.”
“You don’t have t—“ Ryujin starts, but then stops. “Fine, okay.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Yeji makes her way out of the car first, and then opens Ryujin’s side and offers her arm. Ryujin clasps on to it, and Yeji holds her up as they walk inside the dorm. They scan Ryujin’s ID, briefly question Yeji, but ultimately allow her in. As they quietly make their way into the elevator and later on reach Ryujin’s floor, Yeji feels the familiar gnawing in her chest bubble up.
“You meant it right?” Yeji asks, and then she lowers her voice. “You weren’t just high, right? Like, you actually—“
Ryujin rubs her temple. “Yes, I meant it. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Or, you know, you can learn to reach out.”
Yeji makes a face. “I deserve that.”
“You do.”
“I’m sorry, again.” Yeji feels like she has to say it.
“Yeah, I know.” Ryujin leans against her door and stares at her, eyes half-open.
“About Jisu—“ Yeji starts, but Ryujin cuts her off.
“—You don’t have to—“
“—Ryu, let me finish.”
They look at each other for a bit, and then Ryujin’s shoulders slump. “Okay, fine.”
“It’s…we’re not, like, we’ve just gone out three times, you know? It’s not anything serious.”
“I could tell.”
Yeji doesn’t know why she’s explaining herself, but it feels like she has to let Ryujin know. Maybe, she wants Ryujin to be the one brave enough to kiss her again some day.
“Okay, if you know,” she says.
Ryujin nods. “Call me tomorrow.”
“I will, I promise,” Yeji tells her, meaning it.
“Hm,” is all Ryujin says, before unlocking her door and stepping inside. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Yeah.” Yeji stares at her, blinks once, twice, thrice, and then—“I missed you.”
“All you have to do is prove it,” Ryujin replies, but she’s smiling when she closes the door.
Yeji stands there for a bit, thinks about fresh beginnings, thinks about high school and how once upon time she didn’t have the courage to be more with Ryujin, thinks about a friendship being rebuilt, and maybe a lifetime being built alongside it.