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Nico’s at the bar.
She’s crammed in one side of a booth with Euijoo, Yuma and Taki sitting across from them. Jo’s at the edge of the booth perched on a stool, her long black hair falling like a curtain down her back. It’s Friday night and the five of them are here, laughing and drinking, ice melting in their drinks and a rapidly dwindling basket of fries set on the center of the table.
Yuma unzips her backpack and pulls out a box. “Who wants to play the ito game?” she asks.
One thing about Yuma is that she doesn’t mess around when it comes to games. Nico doesn’t think Yuma would be caught dead outside without at least a pack of cards in her pocket. It makes being her friend that much more fun.
“Hell yeah, let’s do it,” Taki cheers.
“I don’t think I’ve heard of the ito game. How do you play?” Euijoo says curiously.
“You’ll get it, don’t worry,” Yuma says, and holds out a thick stack of cards with both hands. “Everybody, pick a card.”
Nico chooses a card and peeks at it. 55.
“The topic is things that are cool,” Yuma explains. “Where 1 is something that isn’t cool at all, and 100 is the coolest thing ever.”
“I have mine,” Taki says immediately. “My card is… tripping and falling in public.”
“Okay, your card must be low,” Yuma laughs. “Mine is pop-tarts.”
Nico bites her lip, thinking. “Mine is skinny jeans.”
“Mine is ballpoint pens,” Euijoo says hesitantly. Yuma smiles at her, giving her a thumbs up.
“Jo?” Taki prompts.
Jo’s staring at her card with a little furrow between her brows. From what Nico knows about her, she’s Yuma’s awkward and beautiful something. Those two can’t even look each other in the eye most of the time, but they seem to like hanging out anyway.
“My card is…” Jo says, and pauses. “Nico.”
“Me?” Nico asks, pointing to herself, while the rest of the table erupts into chaos. Jo nods.
“Hmm,” Euijoo says, pretending to be deep in thought. “Sounds kind of low.”
“HEY,” Nico says, outraged, but not really. She can’t really be mad when Euijoo’s eyes are that sparkly. “I’m cool!”
“Are you?” Euijoo says, tilting her head and giving Nico a once-over.
“OKAY,” Yuma says loudly. “Now, based on the things we’ve said, we’re going to try and put our cards in order, from lowest to highest.”
“I think my card is the lowest,” Taki says, putting hers down first.
“I agree with that,” Yuma says. “The middle cards will probably be the hardest. Who agrees with me that pop-tarts are cooler than skinny jeans?
“Aren’t skinny jeans cool?” Taki asks.
“They aren’t in-season right now,” Nico explains. “And it also depends on who’s wearing them.”
In the end, they agree on this order: tripping and falling, ballpoint pens, skinny jeans, pop-tarts, and finally, Nico.
“Really?” Nico says, touched.
Yuma rolls her eyes. “Jo’s too nice for it to be a low card,” she says. “And also, you’re kind of cool. To some.”
They flip the cards over. 12. 32. 55. 72. 88.
“NICE!” Taki cheers.
“Okay, let me explain,” Jo says, waving her hands around. She’s doing her version of shouting, which means that her voice is barely loud enough to be heard over the music. “I think that Nico is as cool as you can get while still being a regular person and not, like, a celebrity. That’s why I chose her.”
“88’s super high,” Nico says. She hadn’t managed to score anywhere near that high on her last finance midterm. “Thanks, Jo.”
“Jeez, what did you do the underclassmen?” Euijoo asks, squeezing her hand. “Why do they all think that you’re cool?”
“Um, because it’s true?” Nico says, flipping her hair, and Euijoo rolls her eyes. But there’s no malice to it at all, and she hadn’t corrected the final order when they put the cards down.
Euijoo’s just known Nico for too long. And it makes sense, that Euijoo doesn’t think she’s cool. After all, when it comes to Euijoo, Nico isn’t cool at all. And it’s way worse than tripping and falling in public, or anything so temporary. How can you be cool when you’re in love with your best friend?
---
It’s been a long time.
Nico’s used to it by now. It’s been a decade, it’s been forever; she’ll be in love with Euijoo for the rest of her life. But it isn’t like Nico is just going to keel over and die with the weight of it (although in her weaker moments, that’s what it feels like).
It’s seventh grade when they meet. At that time, nobody’s really cool, even if they like to think they are. At twelve, Nico’s eyeliner is uneven and she has to stuff her bra so that her clothes don’t gape at the chest. She spends her allowance on beads and wires and does her math homework only so her parents will let her go to sleepovers, and her diary is full of stories about who likes who and who said what and lyrics from her favorite songs on the radio.
Nico isn’t a troublemaker, exactly, but she’s always getting dress coded, and she exasperates her teachers for talking too much in class, although they’re otherwise fond of her.
Euijoo’s in her English class. She’s from a different elementary school than Nico, so Nico doesn’t know her that well. All Nico knows is that while Euijoo doesn’t talk much in class, she always says something smart when she’s called on, so Nico figures she must be smart.
One day the teacher asks Euijoo to come up to the front of the classroom to share her book report. It’s supposed to be a reward for the five people in the class with the best book reports, but even though Euijoo’s face is perfectly blank as she stands at the front of the room, Nico gets the feeling that Euijoo does not feel particularly rewarded.
“My book was Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai,” Euijoo says quietly. “Since the book was written in poetry, I also wrote a poem.”
The class is silent.
“Right,” Euijoo says, and takes a deep breath.
If I were an architect
I would not design skyscrapers
with steel beams
and glass windows
or mansions
with dozens of rooms
and infinity pools
I would not design pyramids
or cathedrals
or an eighth world wonder
I would draw the
blueprints of a house
with a kitchen
for my mother who
loves to cook and
a separate bedroom
for my sister who
is just growing up
I would sketch a
schematic of my heart
and make it a home.
Euijoo’s voice is soft and her expression is neutral in the way that Nico later learns means that she’s desperately embarrassed and trying her best not to show it (“I told the entire class that I live in an apartment,” is what Euijoo thinks of that episode) but Nico is enamored.
At that time, Nico only has experience liking boys and just figures that she just really, really wants to be friends with Euijoo. And Nico makes it happen, even though Euijoo seems pretty confused at first as to why Nico is suddenly talking to her. But Nico ends up liking her for real, likes talking to her more than any of her other friends, and even though the rest of her middle school friend group implodes due to drama before high school, Nico hangs onto Euijoo and never lets her go.
---
There’s this quote from a book that Nico likes, about these two girls in World War II who would do anything for each other.
“It’s like being in love, discovering your best friend.”
It’s true, so it’s understandable that Nico can’t tell why she’s so obsessed with Euijoo, whether it’s the former or the latter. Euijoo’s name doesn’t come up once in Nico’s diary until they become friends, and then suddenly Euijoo is all she writes about.
She talks about Euijoo just as much, too, and when Euijoo first comes over to Nico’s house, her mother says, “Euijoo, we’ve heard so much about you.”
“Yeah,” her older sister chimes in. “Nico will not shut up about you.”
Nico has to stop this. “Euijoo, do you want some fruit? We have so much fruit in the house right now.”
“Oh, um,” Euijoo says. “Sure?”
“Great!”
Anyway, if you must know, this is Euijoo: she’s taller than Nico and wears round spectacles and keeps her long brown hair in a ponytail that hits the small of her back. She wears sweaters and blue jeans and has never been dress coded in her life, and offers Nico her jacket when it’s cold outside. She likes Legos and historical fiction, and she loves her family more than anything.
Nico thinks that Euijoo is so interesting but Euijoo never likes to talk about herself, always redirecting the attention to the person that she’s talking to. It makes her a good listener, but Nico always wants to know more about her, wants to know Euijoo the best in the whole world, wants to know Euijoo the way that Euijoo knows herself. But even though Nico doesn’t know everything about Euijoo she knows that Euijoo cares about her.
That’s the important part, the part that carries Nico through everything else. If nothing else, they’re best friends.
---
But Nico figures it out, even though sometimes she wishes she didn’t.
The first bracelet she gives to Euijoo is a simple twist of blue and silver string, the standard token of friendship in that day. The second is a thin circlet of pink and gold beads, the third a loop like a daisy chain. After that it’s too many to count.
Eventually she figures out why she keeps making bracelets to give to Euijoo. Why she likes when Euijoo wears said bracelets— and Euijoo does wear them, rotating them out every so often so they all get equal wear, except for that first one which she wears everyday.
“I think I’m bi,” she tells Euijoo, in ninth grade, as they’re taking the bus home from school.
“Oh,” Euijoo says, then smiles at her. “That’s cool. Thanks for telling me.”
I realized because I like you , Nico adds, in another universe. In this one she changes the subject, because as much as she wants to be fearless, she’s really a coward about anything that counts. The truth is that she can’t stand the thought of telling Euijoo. It would be different, afterward, and Nico can’t lose her. She can’t lose this.
---
For Nico, high school is alright. She’s decently popular in the way that she makes friends with just about anybody, hangs out with both the jocks and the theater kids, and while she still can’t do math she finds that she’s an ace at foreign languages.
Her high school offers classes in business and fashion so she takes those as electives— she’s started making necklaces and earrings as well as bracelets, and she gets so skilled at the sewing machine that her parents allow her to use it only after she’s finished all of her homework for the day.
Euijoo can’t wear earrings because her ears are unpierced. “My parents said that I can get them pierced after high school,” she tells Nico.
Nico doesn’t question it. Euijoo’s parents are strict about random things, but to be honest so are Nico’s; Euijoo just puts a lot of pressure on herself. Nico wants to be as diligent as Euijoo, she really does, but she’s only able to be diligent about the things that she likes, whereas Euijoo can force herself to work hard at just about anything.
“After we graduate, I’ll come with you to get your ears pierced, then,” Nico says.
They’re lying on Nico’s bed, legs hanging off the side. Most of the time, Euijoo comes over to Nico’s house, because her house is big and her parents never mind Euijoo being there (they think Euijoo’s a good influence on her or something), but Nico likes going over to Euijoo’s apartment as well, even though the apartment is cramped and she doesn’t have her own room, shares it with her little sister Mirae.
Nico loves Mirae, thinks of her as her own younger sister. If Nico and Euijoo are hanging out, Nico does her best to include Mirae as well. She remembers always wanting to tag along with her older sister’s friends when she was younger, so she gets it. Plus, she would be offended if Mirae didn’t hero-worship her just a little.
“I made first chair, so I’ll have a solo in the next concert,” Mirae tells her, when Nico is procrastinating on homework by listening to Mirae explain the drama in the viola section of her middle school orchestra.
“That’s amazing!” Nico says. She stands up, twirls her car keys around her finger. “Come on, I’ll buy you ice cream.”
“Really?” Mirae says, and Nico nods. She just got her license last month and loves driving people places. “Thank you, Nico-jie!”
“Of course,” Nico says, preening.
Euijoo puts her textbook away. “Are you buying me ice cream as well?” she says. “Nico-jie?”
Nico should say something like depends, did you also make first chair recently? but instead she nearly passes out. “Um, okay,” she stammers, and Euijoo must feel weird as well because that’s the last time she ever makes that joke.
This is why Nico can’t be too confident.
---
But it’s hard, being in love with your best friend. It’s hard enough that Nico sometimes likes to forget about it, to set the weight aside for just a while.
She doesn’t know if Euijoo likes girls. Euijoo rejects all the guys that ask her out, politely citing that she isn’t allowed to date in high school, but maybe Euijoo just hasn’t met a guy that she likes yet.
Meanwhile, Nico has crushes on everybody. She might be in love with Euijoo, but in high school it’s manageable enough that she still likes other people. And Nico wants to have someone to kiss and go on dates with, wants romance the way she sees it in the movies, and if her best friend is off-limits then what else is she supposed to do?
So in sophomore year it’s that girl in the school musical, in junior year it’s that guy on the soccer team, in senior year it’s that girl who’s a cheerleader who is just as not into Nico as Nico is not into her. They all aren’t serious, especially that last one. They break up, and it’s fine. Nico moves on.
She tells Euijoo about all of it, and Euijoo just listens quietly.
When Nico is sixteen she actually pays attention to SAT tutoring so that they have a shot at attending the same university, but Euijoo is in all honors and gets straight As and Nico knows that if Euijoo chooses to apply to the top schools on the coasts then Nico can’t do anything about it.
Nico feels awful, because Euijoo is so smart that she should go anywhere that she likes, but Nico wants her to stay.
“I think in-state is fine,” Euijoo says, when Nico finally has the courage to ask.
“Really?” Nico says. They’re in the library, supposedly working on college applications, but every time Nico looks at the application portal with its pages of questions she feels the urge to take a nap for the next five years.
“Yeah, I mean… otherwise it’s too expensive, and I also don’t want to go somewhere too competitive. I think I’d be too lonely.”
“You’d miss me too much,” Nico says, dizzy with relief.
“I wouldn’t miss you at all,” Euijoo says swiftly. At Nico’s pout, she relents. “Okay, maybe a little.”
“Just a little?”
“It isn’t like we wouldn’t text all the time, or call,” Euijoo points out.
“You suck at texting,” Nico says, with no heat. And then— “We should be roommates.”
“How about we get in first,” Euijoo says, and then squints at Nico’s screen. “I think you put in the wrong birthday.”
Nico slams her head on the desk. “Get me out of here.”
They do get in, and Nico asks Euijoo again if she wants to be roommates. Euijoo hesitates, asks Nico if there’s somebody else she would rather room with instead, and Nico wonders if after all these years Euijoo still doesn’t know what the word best in best friends means.
But Nico does falter, for a second, although not for the reason that Euijoo thinks. Nico’s been in love with Euijoo for four years now, and while Nico’s never tried to fall out of love she thinks that maybe she should, or at least not make it worse by living with her. After all, it can’t be good to have what you want so close to you, in front of you, all the time, right? But Nico’s never been good with self-control.
---
Nico ensures that she is single in time to go with Euijoo to prom. They go dress shopping together and Nico tries to be objective about what would look good on Euijoo as opposed to off of her.
“Nothing strapless, okay?” Euijoo says. “Unlike you, I don’t have the necessary equipment to pull it off.”
Nico bursts into laughter. “The necessary equipment?”
The thing is that Euijoo’s chest isn’t totally flat (Nico tries not to pay attention to these things, and doesn’t quite succeed), but Euijoo just likes saying so because she knows it’ll make Nico laugh. Sometimes Nico thinks Euijoo finds the most roundabout ways of saying these things on purpose, which is funny in its own way.
In any case, Nico is mindful as she browses. Euijoo is tall and slender; Nico thinks that she’ll look good in something blue, something elegant.
“Hey,” Nico says. “You choose something for me.”
“This is prom?” Euijoo says nervously. “You only get one of those? I know zero about fashion compared to you?”
“I’ll tell you if I don’t like your choice,” Nico says. “Also, as long as it isn’t a clown suit, I should be fine.”
Euijoo looks around with apprehension, like just her being there will cause a clown suit to magically appear on the racks. In the end, she hands Nico two options: one a strapless red gown with gold accents along the bodice, the other a glittering black dress that spills to the floor like the night sky.
Nico actually loves both (and if she hadn’t, she was good enough at tailoring to change that, which she admits is partially why she was so confident in asking Euijoo to make the decision for her). In the end she chooses the black dress. It’s a little bit too long for her, because they make prom dresses for models, not regular people, but that’s easy enough to fix.
Meanwhile, for Euijoo, there had only been option, really— and she was tall enough for it, no adjustments needed (no, Nico is not jealous). On prom night, Nico twists Euijoo’s hair into an intricate braided crown and brushes silver glitter over her eyelids, and then Euijoo changes into her gown— a light blue mermaid dress that shows off her hourglass figure, unadorned except for the clear line of beading at the waist.
She looks like Chang’e, the goddess of the moon, so pretty that Nico could die. Instead, she just says, “You look great!” and congratulates herself for managing to sound normal.
“Thank you,” Euijoo says, shy.
Nico helps her with her necklace. It’s the one Nico had given her on her sixteenth birthday, a silver crescent set with an iridescent stone. It glows softly when it catches the light, like a whispered secret.
---
In the summer after their senior year of high school, Nico gets a job as a lifeguard at the community pool. It’s fun, but she’s constantly trying to get the smell of chlorine out of her skin, out of her clothes.
Euijoo’s at the mall manning the bubble tea stand at the food court. Nico would go pester her, but the stand is extremely busy, and there’s no way Euijoo should be paid minimum wage for this. Nico would love to see those CEOs with their million-dollar salaries try to keep their cool when the line is thirty people long and the tub of lychee jelly is running low.
So instead of bothering her, Nico goes to pick Euijoo up after her shifts so that she doesn’t have to walk, and sometimes she’ll wait in line just to stuff a twenty into the jar labeled only sexy people tip.
“This is proof that I’m sexy,” Nico says, winking, and Euijoo just rolls her eyes at Nico’s antics but she always makes Nico free drinks, with strawberry jelly and 100% sugar because she knows that Nico has the taste buds of a child.
Also, Euijoo finally gets her ears pierced.
“Do you need me to hold your hand?” Nico asks, sitting on a stool nearby and nervously eying the staple gun.
Euijoo raises an unimpressed brow. “No, I’m good.”
“Are you sure?” Nico asks.
Euijoo sighs, but she reaches out to grab Nico’s free hand, the one which Nico isn’t using to cover her eyes. “How did you even get your ears pierced when you’re this afraid of needles?”
“I was two years old and had no idea what was happening,” Nico says proudly.
Euijoo has to wear the standard silver studs that they give her at the shop for eight weeks, but when that time is up Nico presents her new earrings: dangly orange balls that look like tangerines, strung up on gold wires.
In August she posts her picture dump on Instagram and captions it hot girl summer before tagging Euijoo. Social media is fantastic because Nico can call Euijoo pretty or hot and really, there’s nothing that Euijoo can do except like her post and take the compliment.
---
Right before college starts, Nico gets to meet Fuma, who knows Euijoo from her hometown. Apparently they’ve known each other since elementary school and have always kept in contact.
Honestly, Nico is jealous of Fuma, for all the years that Fuma knew Euijoo while she didn’t, and because Fuma and Euijoo game together while Nico died playing against the first set of training bots in Overwatch and has refused to play since.
So, Fuma, the idea, the concept? Nico hates her. But Fuma, the reality?
“Wow, she’s so cool,” Nico says dreamily, after a two hour meeting where Fuma had bought them both glass noodles and then showed them around campus. It’s August, Fuma’s shirt is sleeveless, and seriously, those arms .
“Please don’t tell me you have a crush on Fuma,” Euijoo says.
“Then I won’t.”
“Well, if you do, it’s not going to work out for you,” Euijoo says. For some reason she sounds prissier than usual, maybe because of the heat. Nico should stop messing with her.
Instead, Nico asks, “Why not?”
Euijoo doesn’t respond. She just takes out her phone and types something into the Instagram app, pulling up the profile of a woman named Kei who is so hot that she must be a celebrity or a model. “This is her girlfriend.”
“GODDAMN,” Nico exclaims.
“I hope you aren’t too heartbroken,” Euijoo says drily.
“Are you kidding?” Nico says. “This is the best day of my life.”
---
College is… well. Nico’s majoring in Business, so she has it easier than say, Euijoo, who made the unhinged decision in senior year to major in math and computer science. (Nico knows why she chose it, though, and it wasn’t for herself.)
It’s not to say that Nico doesn’t struggle. Quite the opposite. It’s not like she went to college and everything immediately clicked into place, the way some part of her had envisioned it. Her general education requirements are crazy hard and she isn’t used to being away from home. In that way, she’s glad she roomed with Euijoo. Everything else is new, so she loves coming back at the end of the day to her best friend of several years, as comforting and familiar as the citrus-flavored perfume that Euijoo always wears.
And she likes that she gets to be there for Euijoo, too, that when Euijoo comes back from her first calculus exam with her shoulders rounded and her mouth in a tight line, Nico can give her a hug and tell her she did well, climb into her bed and put on an episode of The Good Place.
“I don’t know what to do, I’ve never taken a class where I was this confused,” Euijoo admits, two episodes later. “It’s like— I don’t even know what the professor is talking about.”
“Hey,” Nico says, squeezing her hand. “You’ll figure it out. In the meantime, let’s go get smoothies.”
---
Euijoo does figure it out. She always says that she isn’t smart, just better than most people at studying, but Nico staunchly believes that does mean she’s smart, because what is hard work if not its own talent? Euijoo’s always at office hours, at the library late at night, color-coding her notes and doing practice sets.
“Which library is your favorite?” Nico asks.
“The agricultural one,” Euijoo says immediately. “It’s really pretty and it usually isn’t too crowded.”
“I see.”
Euijoo smiles. “I can show you, if you want.”
“Do I have to study in there?”
“Yes,” Euijoo says, eyes wide. “Otherwise, the campus police come and arrest you.”
Euijoo is probably joking, but Nico wouldn’t know. If Euijoo knows which library is the best to study at before an exam, then Nico knows which party is the place to be on a Friday night. It’s not that she’s always at parties, but she likes dressing up and meeting people, and parties happen to be a place that she can do both of those things at once. And she likes having fun, but she does wonder if she likes alcohol a bit too much. Nico’s always been prone to excess, and parties don’t help with that.
She comes back to the dorm late most Friday nights and immediately crashes into the bed, dead asleep. She wakes up on Saturdays to Euijoo bonking her on the head with a water bottle, already dressed for the day. She leaves the blinds closed because she’s an angel.
It’s not that Nico doesn’t invite Euijoo to these parties, for the record. Euijoo just shrugs and tells Nico that it isn’t her scene, and to text her if she needs Euijoo to come pick her up. Nico doesn’t want to worry her and this is what keeps Nico in check, slows her down enough so that she can text Euijoo updates.
She doesn’t take Euijoo’s offer to pick her up except for one time. She’s really fucking sad that night: she’s pretty sure she bombed all her midterms, she doesn’t feel like she has any real friends here, except for the one who won’t love her back. She texts Euijoo a few messages which are totally incoherent and manages to drop a pin to her location in the chat right before her phone dies.
It’s 2 AM and she’s sitting on the curb when Euijoo appears, half hidden in the night.
“Juju,” Nico slurs.
“Oh thank god, you’re here,” Euijoo sighs. “You stopped answering my texts.”
“Phone died.”
Euijoo takes off her jacket and drapes it around Nico’s shoulders. “Juju, I love you,” Nico cries, too drunk for it to mean anything when it should mean everything.
“Yeah, yeah, what would you do without me,” Euijoo sighs. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
---
“Do I talk in my sleep?” Nico asks Euijoo one day.
Euijoo purses her lips, considering this for a moment. “No, I don’t think so,” she says. “At least, I’ve never heard you saying anything. Why do you ask?”
“Just curious,” Nico says lightly.
She has to check, just to make sure. She’s worked so hard to keep her secret from Euijoo so far and doesn’t want to ruin it with something stupid like that. Living so close to her feels dangerous. Makes it worse, like there’s no room behind her ribcage for anything else besides her heart.
In her dreams it always smells like citrus. In her dreams she’s standing in a museum staring up at an oil painting of her best friend, unable to move as everybody else walks by. In her dreams Euijoo is still untouchable and Nico feels like she can’t breathe. Is this how it is? Will she feel like this for the rest of her life?
The housing portal opens up for sophomore year. “Hey,” Nico says to Euijoo. “Want to be roommates again?”
---
At some point, Nico becomes an expert at the situationship. She can’t have love as the real thing but she can play it as a game. She gets used to holding her cards close to the chest, smiling bright to hide that she has a losing hand.
It’s the fall sophomore of her sophomore year and Nico is sitting in her frankly incomprehensible STAT 100 class playing Wordle on her laptop when she feels a pair of eyes on her— or, rather, on her computer screen.
Nico turns around. Makes eye contact with a girl with wavy hair and dark eyes. For some reason Nico begins to sweat— the girl is definitely judging her strategy— and doesn’t end up getting the word. Turns out it was BOOZE. Oh. Nico didn’t realize that there were two O’s. Maybe this is a sign that she should start paying attention to the lecture.
A ripped piece of notebook paper slides her way. That one was hard , it reads.
I don’t know, I feel like I should have gotten it… Nico writes. What’s your name?
The paper comes back with a four-letter hangman setup. It takes a few minutes, but Nico gets this one.
YUMA.
I don’t know why there are so many vowels in my name, Yuma writes.
It’s a pretty name, Nico writes. Thanks for the redemption arc.
So, Yuma. She’s a freshman but doesn’t seem like it, rocks bold eyeliner and a razor-sharp wit. She’s majoring in Statistics so STAT 100 is a first course for her, but somehow she already knows most of the material and just shows up to lecture to see if anything interesting happens.
“I don’t understand you,” Nico says.
Yuma smiles. “I like statistics because it’s the science of prediction. You can be one step ahead of everybody else.”
“... Scary.”
“But there’s always a chance that you’re wrong,” Yuma says. “That’s what makes it fun.”
Yuma is rarely wrong. She’s into board games and Nico likes playing against her just because she wants to figure out how Yuma does it, how she seems to play without any strategy until the moment she looks you in the eye and tells you exactly what cards you’re holding.
Nico likes her. She’s never met anybody like that, someone who can read your mind, someone who is always up to roll the dice. They’re at a party together when Nico kisses her for the first time, and she thought that Yuma’s mouth would be sharp underneath hers but instead it’s as soft as anything.
But the problem with Yuma is that she’s too smart, and it only takes her a month to figure Nico out. One night she looks at Nico with her eyes all intense the way they are right before she solves a case, and Nico already knows what’s coming. Sees it from a mile away.
“This isn’t fair,” Yuma says quietly. “I like you, but…”
I fucked up.
“You’re in love with your best friend. Am I wrong?”
“No,” Nico says. “You aren’t. I’m sorry.”
Yuma rolls her eyes. “Don’t be sorry. After all, I knew it from the start.”
She’s lying. And suddenly Nico sees Yuma for who she is, not a clairvoyant, or a mastermind. Just an eighteen year old girl who made the wrong bet and broke her heart in the process.
---
Nico has to give it to Yuma, though— she doesn’t let anybody feel sorry for her. Miraculously, she does let Nico stay friends with her, and Nico isn’t sorry for Yuma but she is sorry for treating her that way. She can’t be Yuma’s girlfriend, but she’ll do her absolute best to be Yuma’s friend.
Yuma’s best friend is a girl named Taki, and they’re a fun pair: they’ve got the same sense of humor, but Taki is sweet all the way through. Their dynamic is easy in a way that makes Nico smile. She adores Taki, who wears star-shaped hair clips and has a laugh that pulls everybody else into the joke.
“I’m curious,” Yuma says. The three of them are at a coffee shop post midterm week, recovering from the damage (or maybe that’s just Nico). “Do you think that Euijoo feels the same?”
Nico chokes on her coffee.
“Who’s Euijoo?” Taki asks curiously.
“Nico’s best friend, who she’s in love with,” Yuma explains.
“Ope, got it.”
Nico has a feeling that Yuma and Taki have definitely talked about this before, so at least her suffering is good for conversation. “Well, Euijoo’s straight,” Nico says. “So… yeah.”
“Hmm,” Yuma says, noncommittal.
Nicholas would love for Yuma to explain the hmm . Yuma’s met Euijoo before, right? What does she think? If anybody would be good at gathering intel it would be Yuma, but Nico won’t ask her of that. They both know that Nico will never have the right to ask her of that.
“That must be hard,” Taki says. “I can’t imagine being in love with my best friend.”
“Excuse me?” Yuma retorts. “You’d be lucky to be in love with me.”
“Bro, I do love you,” Taki says dramatically. “Nobody else loves you in the world more than me. Except for like, your parents. And your cat. And your pet cactus.”
“My pet cactus loves me more than you?” Yuma shrieks, and attempts to murder Taki right in the middle of the coffee shop.
Nico laughs. “I’m guessing that you guys have never considered dating.”
The twin looks of horror that pass over their faces says it all. “No,” Taki says.
“Absolutely not,” Yuma says.
“We’re both gay, but not for each other,” Taki says decisively.
They high five.
It must be nice, Nico thinks. And she’s happy for Yuma— for all the bets she makes, there’s no risk in her friendship with Taki at all. Maybe that’s why Yuma is able to take all the risks that she does. She knows that she always has someone to fall back on. With Taki around, Yuma will never lose everything.
---
Since Nico doesn’t want to hurt anybody else, she tries her best to tone down the flirting, sticks with hookups and one-night-stands for the time being. It isn’t an ideal situation, but at least she isn’t breaking anybody’s heart except her own.
She wonders how Euijoo is doing when it comes to romance. It can’t be easy for her, what with all of her classes being in the STEM department. Nico’s in business, knows how awful finance bros can be, but there’s something especially heinous about guys who believe that their misogyny is backed up by science.
She’s heard all about it from Yuma, and while Nico doesn’t understand half the jargon that come out Yuma’s mouth, she hopes Euijoo is doing okay. In Nico’s eyes, there’s no way that any guy will ever be good enough for Euijoo. He will always be too plain, too ordinary. But at the very least, he needs to treat Euijoo well.
Nico’s borrowing Euijoo’s charger one day when a notification pops up on Euijoo’s phone. “Ooh, you’re on Hinge?” Nico asks.
“It wasn’t my idea,” Euijoo says immediately. “My friend failed her midterm. I let her make me one to cheer her up.”
Nico can’t help but laugh. Sounds like something she would do, if she weren’t in love with Euijoo and so scared of losing her. “Let me see.”
Euijoo holds her phone to her chest. “It’s embarrassing…”
She ends up handing her phone to Nico anyway. Nico scrolls through the guys who have messaged her, making fun of their dumb gym pictures and awful pick-up lines, and Euijoo goes along with it until she asks, “Then what kind of person do you think that I should date?”
ME , Nico doesn’t say. The truth is that next to Euijoo, Nico is just as ordinary as anybody else.
“I don’t know,” Nico says truthfully. If this were anybody else she would have started swiping through profiles, giving her input on who she thought might be a good match, but she just can’t. She wonders if Euijoo can see right through her. “I’ll figure it out when you meet them.”
“Huh,” Euijoo says.
“What?”
“I don’t know,” Euijoo says. “I mean, that makes sense, what you said. I was just trying to get your opinion.”
It’s not said in an accusatory way by any means but Nico feels caught anyway. “I just know, whoever it is, they have to love you,” she says, trying to breathe through the iron band around her chest. “And they have to like me.”
“I won’t date anybody who doesn’t like you,” Euijoo says immediately.
“Promise?”
Insanely enough, Euijoo doesn’t even roll her eyes. “Yeah. I promise.”
Even though Euijoo doesn’t bring up Hinge again, Nico knows that Euijoo goes on dates. She always schedules them at the coffee shop that Fuma works at, in case that thing go south, and sometimes Fuma texts Nico updates. Nico and Fuma are always texting about Euijoo, their message history is kind of funny because of that.
WTF , Fuma texts her, one ordinary Thursday afternoon when Nico is actually at the library (the social floor, of course). EJ JUST DUMPED HER DRINK ON THIS GUY’S HEAD?
SHE DUMPED HER DRINK? Nico texts back. JUJU??
There is a single exclamation point and then radio silence, presumably because Fuma has to get back to work.
Neither Nico nor Fuma is able to wrestle the answer out of Euijoo, who refuses to talk about the whole thing. She just reassures Nico that she wasn’t hurt. Nico is finally about to accept that she will just never know when a few days later she runs into Maki, one of Euijoo’s adopted underclassmen. Maki bluntly tells Nico that she was there. Euijoo had dumped her drink on that guy’s head because he called Nico a slut.
---
But there’s nothing for Nico to do, no way for her to prepare, when Euijoo actually gets a boyfriend.
Apparently he majors in computer science (lame). Apparently he’s in the gymnastics club and can do multiple spins on the pommel horse (really cool, what the fuck). Apparently he asks Euijoo out with orange lilies because she’s always wearing those orange earrings, and he thought that it might be her favorite color (so messed up that Nico doesn’t even know where to begin).
“Maybe I should switch to computer science,” Nico muses, three drinks in.
“You cried trying to print hello world,” Yuma reminds her.
“It was stressful,” Nico says, and bursts into tears.
Nico meets him, the boyfriend, because she and Euijoo run into him at the grocery store. He is perfectly nice to Nico and smiles when he looks Euijoo’s way, this small, disbelieving smile like he can’t believe he’s lucky enough to be dating her. He’s lovely. And yet Nico can’t look at him. He’s a black shadow with his arm around Euijoo’s shoulders, nameless, faceless, an oil spill across the water.
“He says he likes you,” Euijoo says, a few days later. “He said he thinks that you’re really cool.”
There’s this pleading note to her voice, like she needs Nico to like him too.
Nico hates him. She hates him so much that she can feel it inside her: a silver knife, a poisoned chalice, a burning flame. She hates him so much that if it were a crime she would be in jail for first-degree murder. She wishes, for the first time in her life, that she were a boy, so that maybe she could have a shot at being Euijoo’s boyfriend instead.
“I like him,” Nico says, summoning up a smile from some deep well, some core part of her that has gotten her through so many years. “On the condition he treats you well. He’s good to you, right, Juju?”
“Yeah,” Euijoo says, turning her bracelet around her wrist.
“Okay,” Nico says earnestly. “Then I’m happy for you.”
---
Despite Euijoo’s boyfriend saying that he likes Nico, that he thinks she’s cool, that they should all hang out sometime, absolutely, definitely— Euijoo always hangs out with him separately.
It should be a relief to Nico, but truthfully her heart is quite short on relief these days. She wants to forget, wants to love Euijoo only platonically. She used to believe that her love made her a better friend, that the fire made their relationship warmer, brighter, but now she’s afraid that it might burn everything to ashes.
The romcoms don’t get it right— it isn’t easy when your best friend gets a boyfriend. And if you’re in love with said best friend? Good luck.
Euijoo’s private about her relationship. Nico only knows anything about it because they’re roommates and Euijoo gives her a heads up when she’s going out, and because sometimes Nico will ask questions to sate her own morbid curiosity. But she knows she isn’t doing this right when she finds out that Euijoo isn’t a virgin anymore through Euijoo putting her finger down in a game of Never Have I Ever at a friend’s birthday party. Nico hasn’t even drank anything yet, but she feels like she wants to throw up anyway.
She wants to bring it up later but it gets stuck in her mouth. She doesn’t know what to say where it wouldn’t turn into a fight.
Nico tries her best to be a good best friend, she really does, but she’s unsure of her place, now that she has a boyfriend. Isn’t Nico the person who’s closest to Euijoo? Isn’t she the one who knows her the best in the whole world? But Nico hates how much space she takes up in Euijoo’s life, because she knows that’s the amount of space she will have to cede.
Sometimes she believes that Euijoo’s boyfriend has nothing on her, will never love Euijoo as much as she does. There is no world in which he can compete with Nico. She is the one who can make Euijoo laugh on bad days, the one whose presence makes Euijoo feel the most like herself. And Euijoo might have a boyfriend but she’s still wearing Nico’s jewelry; when he is with her Nico is there as a ghost, a hand on Euijoo’s wrist, an arm around her neck.
But actually, none of it matters. He has all the time in the world to make up for lost ground. And in the end— what’s a friendship bracelet next to a wedding ring?
---
Incredibly, Nico doesn’t self-destruct.
In junior year she and Euijoo are in an apartment rather than a dorm, so they have different rooms, which helps. On top of that, Nico keeps herself busy, she distracts herself. She mocks up a website for a small jewelry business as a final project in her marketing class; her professor writes her a glowing review, and she uses it to begin selling the pieces that she makes. Her university’s art lab has better equipment than anything she has at home, so she spends her time there, trying out all the different machines.
She thinks about her younger self, making bracelets out of string, and finds herself happy with the progress she’s made. It’s a genuine joy— Nico is a joyful person, her cheer and enthusiasm her best qualities, and there is no unrequited love which can take that away from her. So she makes her peace with Euijoo having a boyfriend. She can live with it.
And then they break up.
“I’ll kill him,” Nico says immediately, more autopilot than anything. She hasn’t even registered the news for real.
“Don’t,” Euijoo says, shaking her head. “It was my fault, after all.”
“How could it be your fault?” Nico demands. “He was the one who broke up with you.”
“It just was, okay?” Euijoo says. “I don’t even want to talk about it. I just wanted to let you know.”
“Okay,” Nico says. She bites her lip. “Do you want ice cream?”
“That would be nice.”
They don’t have ice cream. Nico goes to the grocery store and buys the nicest variety she can find, two jars of gelato layered with cookie crumbles and chocolate chips. She wants to kill Euijoo’s ex-boyfriend but there’s also this horrible sense of relief that she doesn’t know what to do with. She heads back to the apartment and they share one of the gelato jars, passing it back and forth in relative silence. Euijoo didn’t say anything about their relationship when it was happening and she doesn’t say much now that it’s over.
It’s easier for Nico to breathe, after that, but there’s a part of her that’s terrified of having to do it all over again. After university, she tells herself, she’ll disappear— resurface in New York or Paris or Beijing, somewhere that Euijoo won’t want to follow her. She can’t hurt this much every time that Euijoo dates someone new. It’s not something set in stone, because it’s not something that she wants to believe, but the best way to love Euijoo in the future might be to let her go.
---
At least for now, though, Nico has no plans to give her up.
For now, they’re best friends, and Nico doesn’t question it the same way she doesn’t question the ground beneath her feet, and life goes on.
She’s having a bit of an emergency at the moment, because her supply chain management exam is in ninety minutes and Nico cannot for the life of her find her calculator. If she has to do all those tedious equations by hand she will fail for sure.
CAN I BORROW YOUR CALCULATOR? she texts Euijoo.
Pauses. Considers that Euijoo takes her calculators very seriously. PLEASE?
Euijoo generally isn’t great at responding to texts (especially when they’re stupid memes, which is unfortunate because that’s basically all Nico sends her), but thankfully it’s only a minute before Euijoo types, they’re in my room, in the top drawer of the cabinet.
THANK YOU ILY, Nico types, smiling because the phrasing implies that Euijoo has multiple calculators, she’s so adorable, and opens the door to Euijoo’s room.
For how close they are, Nico really isn’t here all that often. Euijoo is the sort of person who likes her space and Nico respects her privacy. It almost feels wrong to be in here alone, but there isn’t much to see. Euijoo’s bed is neatly made, a singular orange plushie next to the pillow, and her desk is clean except for a two-monitor setup and a closed textbook near the keyboard.
Nico walks over to the dresser and pulls open the top drawer. It’s a wide drawer and there’s all sorts of things in here: a jewelry box, a stack of magazines, two stress balls, a sheaf of stickers, and a square of filmy blue lace that—
Wait.
It takes a second to register as folded lingerie, but after that there’s no mistaking it. There’s the delicate curve of the bra cup, the sheer fabric and the ribbon lining. That’s a lingerie set.
In Nico’s head, she falls to the floor and dies. In real life, she just stares in shock. What the hell? What the fuck? Maybe the information shouldn’t be as life-changing as it is, but it breaks Nico’s brain.
Her phone vibrates. just realized there are two cabinets in my room. I meant the desk cabinet.
got it , Nico texts back, like she’s not freaking out.
Euijoo’s desk cabinet actually does contain a calculator; three, in fact. Euijoo owning multiple calculators was funny five minutes ago, but now Nico’s life is ruined. She picks the simplest one which seems the least likely to shoot a laser beam into the lecture hall if she presses the wrong button, and narrowly avoids getting hit by a car on the way to the exam building.
During the exam, she runs her thumb over the orange sticker on the back of Euijoo’s calculator, the BYUN written written on the plastic in metallic silver Sharpie. She tries so hard not to think about her best friend in lingerie that she somehow gets that stupid Burger King commercial jingle stuck in her head instead, whopper whopper whopper whopper bouncing around in her brain like a ping pong ball the entire time.
Euijoo is in the apartment when Nico gets back. “How was the exam?” she asks.
“Fine,” Nico says, which is a total lie— a whopper, even. “Thanks for the calculator.”
They make eye contact and Nico can hear the unspoken question of did you find anything in my room, to which Nico gives the unspoken answer, no I didn’t find anything in your room , but she’s actually terrible at unspoken lying so now they both know that Nico knows. Or maybe Nico’s just paranoid.
It’s fine, actually. It’s not like any of this information is relevant because Euijoo is someone that Nico will never have, but it’s not fair, because Nico didn’t even think she had a thing for girls in lingerie before this and now she definitely does. Or maybe she just has a thing for Euijoo, like she always does.
She’s rummaging around in her bag later when her hand hits something hard and rectangular. Nico groans as she pulls her own calculator out of her bag. She must have missed it when she was looking earlier.
---
These days, Nico feels like she’s gotten better at partying. When she just started university she felt like she had to go to everything, but now she knows what’s worth her time and what isn’t.
Sometimes Nico still asks Euijoo if she wants to come to a party with her. Euijoo says no every time, so she probably thinks that Nico’s just asking her to be polite, but Nico really wants her there.
It’s fine, though, because Euijoo says yes to other things which are more her style, especially if they involve other people that she knows. Nico and Euijoo generally have different friend circles, but there’s a certain overlap. Euijoo, for example, loves Yuma, who loves her back so much that Nico is almost jealous.
“Hey, Yuma told me that the Zetas are having a party tonight,” Nico says. “Want to come with?”
“Oh, Harua told me about that too,” Euijoo says. “My friend Hanbin is in the Zetas. It might be nice to say hi.”
“Wait, really?” Nico says. “You’ll come?”
Euijoo tilts her head. “Yeah. Why not.”
Nico is shocked, but recovers quickly. She can’t give Euijoo the opening to change her mind. “Okay! I’ll do your makeup, then.”
Euijoo wears a v-neck black top, blue jeans, and sneakers. It’s nothing too terribly out of the ordinary but Nico’s heart still does a flip. They go to grab dinner with Yuma and Harua, who somehow get into a heated debate about the best pasta shape. (Rotini or bust, in Nico’s opinion, but she’s not about to get in the middle of that.)
At the party, Nico grabs Euijoo’s hand and doesn’t let go. Pours her a drink and drags her out onto the dance floor. Euijoo looks startled by how much attention Nico is paying to her, but she also seems pleased by it so Nico doesn’t look away.
Someone at the Zetas must be really into 2010s pop-rock because that’s all that’s playing, but it’s not a bad strategy because everybody is singing along. A drum beat starts up and Nico recognizes this song as one that she spent way too much time listening to in middle school. She’s kind of surprised that it’s on a party playlist, but Nico shouts along with all her heart to the lyrics about being in love with a girl with long brown hair, while Euijoo looks surprised that Nico knows such an obscure song.
It’s midnight by the time that they leave. It’s a twenty minute walk back to their apartment, but Nico spots a window advertisement for ten dollar breakfast and is hit with a desperate need for pancakes.
The diner is still open, a warm yellow glow emanating through the windows. Nico sits across from Euijoo in a red plastic booth, and she’s about to say something about how hash browns are definitely one of humanity’s top ten inventions when Euijoo says, “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“I’m listening.”
Euijoo takes a deep breath. “I… like girls.”
Nico knocks over the bottle of syrup. Fortunately, it spills onto her pancakes, so no harm, no foul. “Oh?”
“I don’t know, I might be bisexual if it comes down to it but I also think that I just like girls,” Euijoo says. “Like, my ex was so nice and I liked him a lot, but I just… I think he could tell that I was uncomfortable. I feel really bad about that.”
“It’s okay,” Nico says, and she isn’t that drunk but she’s also nowhere near sober enough to get this right. “You were figuring things out. And I know you, you tried your best to make him happy.”
“I think I did make him happy, for a bit. But I didn’t really fit into his life, either,” Euijoo says quietly. “So it’s good that we broke up.”
“Thank you for telling me,” Nico says, impulsively.
“You’re the first person I told,” Euijoo says, exhaling. “I thought you should know.”
“Because I’m your best friend?” Nico asks, heart in her throat.
Euijoo pauses. “... Yeah. Because you’re my best friend.”
Nico’s trying to figure out what to say to that when Euijoo adds, “And, you like girls, so. Any advice?”
“Um, I don’t know, you know me, I’m just an idiot,” Nico says, eloquently. “I heard the sex is better? Statistically. Like, statistically, sex is better with girls.”
“Oh,” Euijoo says, cheeks pink. “Okay?”
Nico should be banned from speaking. Permanently.
“Um,” Euijoo says. “I’ve also heard that it’s better, statistically… sex is better, when it’s with someone that you love.”
Please , Nico thinks, in my dreams it’s always you, and every song on the radio is a song about you, and I think that if I kissed you it would be better than any sex that I’ve ever had. I love you but in simpler terms I like you, and if you like girls, could you like me back?
“Yeah,” Nico says. “I’ve heard that too.”
---
Euijoo is discreet with her sexuality, as she is about most things. Nico makes her a simple string bracelet in the colors of the lesbian pride flag, and while Euijoo doesn’t wear it out in the open, her smile is enough.
It’s senior year, and as Nico applies to jobs, she wonders if she really will move far away, put some physical distance between herself and this love which she has now carried for almost a decade.
After all this time, shouldn’t she be an expert at bearing the weight? She doesn’t know. She knows that her love has remade her the way a river remakes the earth, that she can’t imagine herself without it. And maybe that it isn’t the way she’s supposed to live, but it’s also made her existence colorful.
In the end, she gets a job offer close by, in the same city as Euijoo. In the end she decides not to fight it, to let it run its course. She will love Euijoo for as long as she can, as long as Euijoo still wants her by her side. And when that time is up Nico will leave, and her love will be a memory as tangible as any silver chain or precious stone, a love like a glittering bracelet that Euijoo can tie around her wrist.
---
Nico’s twenties are like anybody else’s. She works a 9-5 as a marketing intern, sells jewelry on the internet on the side. She’s always on the train, whether it’s commuting to work or meeting up with her friends. She gets really good at saving coupons and mixing drinks.
Even though her 9-5 is more like an 8-6, it’s still better than whatever insanity Euijoo gets up to as a “financial analyst.” Nico doesn’t know what that entails, but some nights Euijoo doesn’t even come home from the office. All Nico know is that Euijoo makes enough money that she’s embarrassed to even talk about it.
“I don’t know…” Euijoo confesses, one day. “I don’t think that I really like it.”
Nico can’t say she’s surprised. No way her best friend, who’s such an idealist, enjoys working in finance. “Are you thinking about switching?”
“I don’t know,” Euijoo sighs. “Maybe after Mirae finishes college.”
“I think it’s cool that you work so hard, Juju,” Nico says, because she knows that Euijoo always worries about what other people think of her, and Nico wants to reassure her that with her, at least, this is no problem. “Whatever you do— I know you have your reasons.”
“Thanks,” Euijoo says softly.
On weekends, if they both have time, Nico and Euijoo go out into the city. Nico documents everything on Instagram, pictures from indie cafes and local parks, clips from small music venues. There’s an old-fashioned movie theater a block away from their apartment, and Nico drags Euijoo to see Wicked with her when it comes out.
The experience is rather surreal. Nico’s seen the play but she did not remember the storyline being this fucking gay. Glinda tucks that flower behind Elphaba’s ear and Nico feels desperately conscious of how Euijoo sitting next to her. She wonders what Euijoo is thinking.
It’s night time when they leave the theater. The street lamps glow in the night, pools of light on the sidewalk.
“The ending was so beautiful,” Euijoo says, awed.
“Defying Gravity is the song of the century,” Nico agrees. “I can’t wait for part two.”
“But, Nico, that movie…” Euijoo says hesitantly.
“What?” Nico says.
“I mean, did you think that maybe Glinda and Elphaba were like. They weren’t just best friends?”
“YES,” Nico says. It comes out a bit too enthusiastic but it’s alright. “The whole time I thought they should just kiss!”
“Maybe in part two?” Euijoo says.
Maybe right now, Nico thinks. “Here’s to hoping.”
---
There is one upside to Nico being hopelessly in love with her best friend: she has a solid excuse for avoiding the nightmare which is dating in your early twenties. She’s on a video call with Harua and Taki in her room one night, and apparently Harua is fighting for her life on Hinge, while Taki flirts with people on… Letterboxd?
“Any app can be a dating app if you try hard enough,” Taki declares.
“It’s brutal out here,” Harua complains. “Yuma is so annoying. When I asked her for dating advice she was just like, ‘have you tried having a beautiful girl be in love with you?’ Like she and Jo aren’t both disasters in their own right. I don’t know how they even got together in the first place.”
“Why were you even asking Yuma for dating advice?” Taki asks.
“You’re right. That one’s on me.”
Nico doesn’t date or even hook up anymore. Maybe that’s lame, but she doesn’t think it’d be fair to anybody if she did that. She goes to bars sometimes with Euijoo, or clubs if the vibe is right, and after drinking and dancing she comes back to their apartment.
No one night stand will ever compete with Euijoo post-party. When she’s in a white bandeau top with the straps slipping off of her shoulders, traces of glitter still clinging to her eyelids, strands of hair escaping her ponytail. It makes Nico feel weightless, looking at her. No matter what, loving Euijoo is so easy. She could do it for the rest of her life.
---
The whole thing about Taki being on Letterboxd becomes even funnier when she successfully finds a girlfriend who agrees that Sharknado is a cinematic masterpiece. Nico knows that she’s not the only one telling that secondhand story to everybody she meets.
When Euijoo hears about it, she asks Nico, “You haven’t gone on a date in a while, right?”
“No,” Nico says simply. It’s Sunday afternoon, sunlight streaming through the open windows. Nico’s got her laptop open on the kitchen table, searching for cookie recipes on the internet. Baking can’t be that hard, right? It’s just like making drinks but with less alcohol involved.
“Do you want to?” Euijoo says. “I could… ask around. If you want.”
Nico laughs and closes her laptop, twisting around to look Euijoo in the eye. “Are you saying that you want to try and set me up?”
Euijoo flushes. “I mean? I don’t really know anybody I could set you up with but I could try.”
“Thank you for the sentiment but I’m good,” Nico says. “For real. Don’t stress yourself.”
“So you aren’t interested in dating?” Euijoo says.
“Who would I even date?” Nico says, fond. “I’m always with you.”
She only realizes her mistake when Euijoo’s expression shutters. Fuck, that came out way too sincere. “Which is like, something I do of my own volition,” Nico adds, trying to do damage control. “Why would I date anybody when I have you?”
Oh, no, that’s even worse. What is wrong with her? She’s not even drunk right now.
“Don’t you want somebody for real?” Euijoo asks.
Nico thinks, that is so unfair. She wonders why Euijoo would ever ask her that. “Do you want me to date somebody that much?” she asks, trying to keep her tone light. “I can set up a Letterboxd account right now.”
Euijoo’s mouth twitches like she’s fighting a smile, and then her shoulders slump. “No. I don’t think… I’m just…”
“Yeah?”
“Um,” Euijoo says, flustered. “I need to tell you something!”
Nico waits.
“I mean, I’m never honest, right?” Euijoo says. “You know that. And you know that I always try to convince myself that I don’t want anything, when really I’m someone who wants too much.”
Nico’s so busy trying to puzzle out the meaning of Euijoo’s speech, trying not to get her hopes up, that she almost misses Euijoo saying, “I want it to be me for real.”
“You…”
Whatever momentary burst of courage Euijoo had felt leaves as quickly as it came. “Nevermind,” she says rigidly, everything about her wiped perfectly blank, but Nico can see right through her. “Just forget about it, actually. I don’t know what I’m saying.”
“I want you to be my girlfriend,” Nico says. “I don’t want anybody else. I want you.”
Nico is immediately aware that she might have just destroyed a decade of friendship with one spontaneous confession, but Euijoo just demands, “Do you mean it?”
It’s 2 PM on a Sunday afternoon when Nico stands up, stares Euijoo in the eye and kisses her square on the mouth. Euijoo makes a noise and kisses her back, wrapping an arm around her waist to pull her closer. Nico feels golden like the afternoon sunlight, warmth coursing through her veins.
Euijoo pulls back for just long enough to say, “It’s always been you. Sorry it took me this long to admit it.”
“It’s okay. We have time,” Nico says, and kisses her again.
---
It takes Nico a while to get used to waking up after that, to think, oh, Euijoo loves me back, and realize it isn’t just a dream. She smiles so wide at work looking at dashboards and key performance indicators that her coworker asks her what’s up. And then he says, “Ah, nevermind. It’s pretty obvious.”
Nico has to rewrite her friendship with Euijoo a little, to accommodate it no longer being just friendship, and Euijoo is so endearingly awkward about it that it makes Nico want to explode. There’s Euijoo, coming home from work in the evenings, and when she comes into the apartment and takes her shoes off she says, “Hi,” in a shy voice, and leans over to give Nico a kiss.
Nico kisses back enthusiastically, and Euijoo’s hands are in her hair, on her waist, and then sliding under the hem of her shirt, at which point Euijoo pulls back to ask, “Sorry, is that okay?”
In lieu of an answer Nico yanks her shirt off over her head so quickly that it ruffles her hair. Euijoo’s smile looks like it’s holding back laughter but Nico genuinely does not care. She’s a total loser when it comes to Euijoo, will get down on her knees and beg for it, and she doesn’t mind if Euijoo knows it.
Euijoo reaches up to smooth down Nico’s hair right before she kisses her and messes it up all over again.
“Wait,” Nico says, breathless. “What about you?”
“Huh?”
Nico rests her hands at the top button of Euijoo’s shirt. “Can I?”
Euijoo looks away, blushing. “...Yeah.”
Somehow the desperation and adrenaline cancel each other out and Nico’s hands don’t shake when she works the buttons open. She does, however, nearly keel over and die when she feels lace against the heel of her hand. There are no words for how pretty Euijoo is.
“You’re perfect, what the fuck,” Nico says.
“Shut up,” Euijoo says, strained. And then, “I’m, um, glad you like it.”
“I like you,” Nico says. “Always.”
They make it into Nico’s bed, somehow. Nico keeps staring. She wants to memorize the way the filmy blue fabric looks against Euijoo’s pale skin, the way the rough lace gives way to the soft warmth of her breasts, her thighs. She doesn’t give Euijoo room to be embarrassed, presses her mouth everywhere she can reach and fucks two fingers into her cunt until she’s shaking, her body seizing around Nico’s hand. And then Nico’s being pressed into the mattress, Euijoo hovering over her with a wild look in her eyes, and all Nico can do is let Euijoo take her apart.
---
Their friends find out that they’re dating through various calls and text messages, the general consensus being “we’re very happy for you” combined with a healthy dose of “It took you guys long enough” and “we can’t believe you guys actually figured it out.”
A few months later, Fuma and Kei host a housewarming party that also doubles as a graduation party for the class below Nico’s. Nico is honestly amazed that Fuma and Kei have managed to buy a house in this economy, but she supposes that those two have always been impressive.
“Congrats on graduating,” Nico tells Yuma.
“Thanks,” she says. “I’m going to be even more of a menace to society now that I have a degree.”
Nico laughs. “I wouldn’t expect anything less of you.”
It’s summer. An open breeze blows through the windows. Nico gets fruit from the rainbow-colored spread in the kitchen and goes to join her friends in the living room. Yuma’s explaining the rules of a board game that she and Taki had bought as a joint gift, and Nico respectfully listens while passing the plate around the table.
They’re halfway through the game when Yuma says, “Okay, you guys are insufferable.” She somehow directs the statement only to Nico, despite the fact that Euijoo is right next to her.
“Huh?” Nico protests. “We’re not even doing anything. We’re just holding hands.”
“Yeah, but it’s the vibes ,” Yuma says, dramatic as always. “Like, I feel single, and I have a girlfriend.”
“To be fair, you and Jo are pretty insufferable as well,” Harua says.
Yuma looks affronted, even as Jo nods in agreement. “We are so not! Anyway, you’re just mad because you don’t have anybody to be insufferable with.”
“Well,” Fuma says to Nico, “I think you guys are sweet.”
Yuma shuts up after that. Thank god for Fuma and her magical powers.
Nico doesn’t know if they’re actually insufferable or not, but she doesn’t care. She’s waited years and years for a chance to date Euijoo and now that she has it she’s going to keep Euijoo for the rest of her life. Nico isn’t done falling in love with her yet. In fact, she hasn’t even started.