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Yoohyeon has been having a hard time breathing – not with the way her lungs expand the same time her diaphragm contracts as the air enters through her nose, while the oxygen in her blood reaches her veins, circulating her whole body.
Last time she checked, her heart still pumps with a normal rhythm, the way it has ever since her heart had developed in her mother’s womb. Born a healthy baby, Yoohyeon and her parents didn’t have anything to worry about.
But lately, she hasn’t been able to breathe.
Yoohyeon hasn’t been able to breathe, and she’s certain she isn’t the only one feeling suffocated.
-
They’re both working adults. Most days, they’re working nine to five excluding the time it takes for them to go to and from work, leaving them with no time to hang around much at home. Although they see each other every day, nothing ever happens anymore – no movie nights, no spontaneous dates. Just two wives busy with real life. The luxury of breathing and having time seems pretty impossible when they get home from work already tired to the bone.
And while Yoohyeon knows the two of them are tired, she knows that it probably is worse for Minji. She’s got a good position – definitely great for her age. After all, not every thirty-two-year old could be up there with the big bosses – however, it only meant that her responsibilities are bigger, and more time is required of her.
Work. They both know it’s essential, especially in in this day and age where there is a price for everything – even for a person’s mere existence. And if there is anything the both of them had learned throughout the years, it is that real life catches up fast, no matter how much they take their time to enjoy freedom.
Still, it didn’t mean that Yoohyeon is okay with seeing Minji get home exhausted every single day. Yoohyeon is certain there is nothing she could do to take away the tiredness, the exhaustion that seems to be weighing Minji down.
But she would be damned if she didn’t try to put a smile on her face.
So that night, when Minji comes home and Yoohyeon has arrived earlier at home once again, Yoohyeon welcomes her with a hug, her lips busy peppering kisses all over Minji’s face. Minji quickly reciprocates the embrace, humming with content as her eyes close at the feeling of Yoohyeon’s lips all over her delicate skin – gentle and brimming with so much love. She leaves a soft kiss on Yoohyeon’s lips, sighing at the thought that she would never get tired of its feeling.
“Everything okay, baby?” Minji asks. She doesn’t mean for her voice to come out thick, laced with tiredness or love or both. Yet it does, and it worries her that it might worry Yoohyeon.
Yoohyeon hums in affirmation, arms still around Minji’s waist. With her lips now resting on her wife’s forehead, softly, she mumbles, “How about we go out tonight?”
“You mean right now?” Minji glances at the clock, feeling Yoohyeon’s soft smile against her skin. “It’s half past nine.”
“I know.”
Minji puts a small distance between them. She looks at Yoohyeon with searching eyes, desperate not to find something that might be wrong. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m okay, baby, we’re okay,” Yoohyeon reaches for her hand. “I’ll wait for you to change?”
Minji stares a little longer, making sure that Yoohyeon is telling her the truth – and it’s stupid because she knows Yoohyeon would never lie to her, not about something like this anyway. Once she realizes she wouldn’t find any traces of dishonesty, she pulls away and smiles.
“Okay.”
-
“Does your mom even know you’re here?” Yoohyeon asks. It’s a bit awkward like this, her lips slightly touching the older girl’s neck every time she speaks. Despite the worry seeping in her voice, she doesn’t make a move to make her come home. If anything, she only holds on tighter to the hand splayed across her stomach – it isn’t anything, just soft innocent touches that Minji seems to like to do. “Your hands are cold.”
“She won’t mind,” is the only thing Minji says. She carefully removes her hands to blow air onto them, warming them up. Above their heads, 17 glow-in-the-dark stars are scattered all across the ceiling of Yoohyeon’s room. They can only be seen when you look up, and with Yoohyeon’s head tucked in the crook of her neck – their more than usual position each time Minji comes over – Minji is the only one who sees. 'It’s okay, I see them every night anyway,' Yoohyeon reassures her once.
“Why not?”
“Because she knows I’m with you.”
Minji says it like it’s the most casual thing in the world, states it like a fact anyone should know. Yoohyeon tries to look up and predictably fails. And for the record, she isn’t to blame, nor is her height that is only slightly shorter than Minji’s, because as always, Minji’s hand is pushing her head back down. Gently, because Minji is never not soft.
“Why do you keep on doing that?” Yoohyeon whines.
“Doing what?”
“I – I don’t know. This? Cuddling me and making sure my head is somewhere on your neck?” Yoohyeon’s voice had turned softer now. The shyness is making itself known within the four walls of her small room.
Minji puts some space between them. The feeling of regret in opening her mouth comes heavy in Yoohyeon’s chest. For the first time since Yoohyeon had known Minji – which says a lot, because they basically grew up together – she sees an unsettling kind of uncertainty in Minji’s eyes. It only makes Yoohyeon’s chest heavier.
“Do you hate it?” Minji lets out. Her voice is as uncertain as her eyes look, and if Yoohyeon thought that the latter was something painful to look at, then she’s wrong. Hearing the tremble in Minji’s voice weighs way worse. “I’ll stop if –“
“- No!” Yoohyeon rushes to embrace the slightly taller girl again, her head resting on where it always does. “I – I was just curious. But I still want an answer, so why?”
“Because it grounds me.” When Yoohyeon only stays quiet, Minji takes it as her cue to continue talking, “It reminds me that you’re breathing and… for some reason it calms me down. Your breathing calms me down.”
The atmosphere is charged with something. It isn’t new, yet it feels like it is, and someday they will understand that it had always been there, its intensity is the only one that changes all throughout – but it never dies. It never will.
“You sound like you’re in love with me.”
It’s an attempt at a joke, and coming from Yoohyeon, it’s definitely brave, but it only makes the air around them heavier.
“Would you hate me if it’s true?” Minji carefully drags her body down, trying to be at the same level as Yoohyeon.
“Depends.” Yoohyeon glances at Minji’s lips. It’s a look of longing, and she would be so conscious of it if Minji wasn’t looking at hers the same.
“On what?”
“On whether you’d leave me hanging if I say that I might be in love with you… too.”
Minji’s answer doesn’t come in words. Her answer comes in the form of a light brush of her lips against Yoohyeon’s, of her fingers slowly caressing Yoohyeon’s cheeks.
That night, it occurs to her that there actually exists something more calming than feeling Yoohyeon’s breath on her skin – it’s being with her, loving her.
Being with Yoohyeon feels a lot like breathing.
Because to Minji, maybe it is.
-
“Are you tired?” Yoohyeon mumbles to Minji’s hair, just slightly beside her ears. Her arms are wrapped around Minji’s in a backhug. The stars above them aren’t as bright and many as they would like them to be, but the view from where they stand surely reminds them of the ones that glow at the ceiling of Yoohyeon’s childhood room – now long gone, but lives permanently in their memories.
Minji answers with a nod, carefully turning around to hug her properly. Softly, she drags Yoohyeon’s head to rest on her shoulders, and Yoohyeon easily nuzzles to her neck as if she’s done it a thousand times before – and she has.
“But you’re okay?” Yoohyeon asks again.
Maybe it’s funny, the way their limbs are tangled with each other's looks awkward if anybody were to see them. Yoohyeon is slightly taller than her now, but everything stayed the same. Minji's hands are still cold. Minji's worries still vanish at the feeling of Yoohyeon breathes.
It’s the same smell, the same sound, and the same sense of comfort being with each other brings.
It’s the same Minji and Yoohyeon.
“I am,” Minji answers, voice in a whisper. “I have you.”
The whole of Yoohyeon thinks that things couldn’t be better – it doesn’t matter that Minji’s arms are tight around her back, and that it makes it a little harder for her to breathe. It doesn’t matter that her nose is cold against Minji’s chest, the flow of air into her lungs much slower than what is normally needed.
Yoohyeon doesn’t care. Not one bit.
Because to Yoohyeon, this is what breathing is like. Seeing Minji smile that beautiful smile of hers – with almost all of her front teeth showing, and her eyes looking so much like a universe Yoohyeon wouldn’t hesitate to dive into. All of these are what Yoohyeon thinks breathing means, and would mean time and time again, no matter what happens, and no matter how long.
She can get all science-y and technical, but Yoohyeon thinks that talking about Minji deserves to be something laced with magic. The light flutters of wings in her chest whenever Minji tells her she loves her isn’t that of a butterfly’s, Yoohyeon believes, but of a beautiful fairy that is in charge of making sure the world turns the way it should.
She only ever wants to talk about her in a language that is out of this world, believing that to describe her with common adjectives and metaphors is too bland—too normal—to fully encapsulate what Minji is. But sometimes, even she runs out of fantasy. Yoohyeon sometimes runs out of words.
Maybe nothing is ever enough to describe what Minji is.
Being with Minji; seeing her smile. Being loved by her.
It is what makes Yoohyeon’s life keep spinning, the same way air keeps her body alive.
-
To Minji, the sight of Yoohyeon right before her eyes looking at her like she’s the most enchanted thing to ever happen to this world – is something that takes away everything – the tiredness, the exhaustion – everything that puts weight on her shoulders.
Perhaps tomorrow, all the heaviness would be back – just about ready to push Minji down like it always does.
But surely, tomorrow, and all the days after that, Yoohyeon would be there, holding her hand and breathing alongside her as they both try to carry the heaviness that comes with being alive.
Yoohyeon puts the easiness in living. Minji doesn’t ever want to let (her) go.