a movie script ending

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/50794930.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: F/F
Fandom: Aespa (Band)
Relationship: Kim Minjeong | Winter/Yu Jimin | Karina
Characters: Uchinaga Aeri | Giselle, Ning Yizhuo | Ningning
Additional Tags: Childhood Friends, to lovers!, Alternate Universe - Idols, Alternate
Universe - Actors, actress jimin x idol minjeong, kind of angsty but
happy ending dw
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2023-10-13 Words: 8,617 Chapters: 1/1
 a movie script ending
by crushpdf

Summary

It’s funny how it’s impossible to identify a decisive moment before it happens.

Jimin, Minjeong, and all the years between them.

Notes

recently watched soulmate (2023) and it absolutely wrecked me so at least part of the blame
for this fic existing goes there (themes of deep childhood friendships, distance / time, so on).
also wanted to have some sort of writing exercise where i practice constraint (because i’m too
wordy ngl) and this is the outcome (i clearly failed). also pls ignore their actual age diff for
the sake of them being in the same year here lol convenience factor. title from (is it 'from' if
it’s literally just the same thing?) "a movie script ending" by death cab for cutie.

made a little playlist for this so listen if u wish: here

See the end of the work for more notes

It’s funny how it’s impossible to identify a decisive moment before it happens.

For Jimin, it’s this: math class and she’s bored as usual, thinking about last night’s cliffhanger
on her recent favorite drama, sketching the main actress’ face in her workbook’s margins.
The summer heat still lying thick in the air, despite the classroom’s open windows. The
teacher lecturing about something she stopped paying attention to eons ago, and then—

It’s the sound of the door sliding open that drags her eyes up. Her gaze falls on a small girl,
backpack over shrugged shoulders, standing reluctant next to her mother.

Kim Minjeong is what she introduces herself as, and after the introduction (the move from
Busan, the standard plea for good treatment), the teacher points towards the empty desk next
to Jimin, the only vacant space in the entire room, as fate would have it.

Minjeong sets her bags down. Jimin looks over, curious, sends a shy smile, which the other
girl returns.

And with that, the band begins to play.

It’s a few weeks after they become inseparable, which itself takes about a day, when the
music starts permeating Jimin’s life.

Minjeong’s last birthday present was an MP3 player, which then naturally becomes the joint
property of Yu Jimin. Unlike at her house, where Jimin’s mother gets headaches at the mere
sound of the radio, Minjeong’s is lively—records, tapes, and CDs are scattered everywhere,
and there’s always an extraneous melody somewhere. They’ve even got a computer, which
Minjeong’s dad diligently uses to download whatever’s newly popular for her.

Accordingly, they become experts on everything pop music: every idol group’s discography
is meticulously memorized, matching faces to names whenever Inkigayo comes on. They
spend hours on end listening to SNSD songs, always tuning in for the live stages, clumsily
attempting to recreate the choreography.
Well, Jimin is clumsy about it. Minjeong, on the other hand, is a natural—she sees it once and
she’s got it down, too graceful for an eleven year old, Jimin thinks, always careful with
angles and limb placements.

The years pass by. Jimin and Minjeong are inextricably connected to each other—always the
ones in the hallways linking arms, sharing earbuds during breaks from class, hunched over
watching some new music video or arguing over dramas. Tossing snacks back and forth,
taking stupid photos of each other sleeping during lunch.

It’s that last picture that’s stayed with Jimin: a selfie of her, some lunch in year one of high
school, Minjeong’s head on her shoulder, soundly asleep. Her intent was to catch the younger
girl looking dumb, tease her upon waking in that way close friends do, but Minjeong just
looks calm, perfectly at peace. Strands of hair draped over Jimin’s uniform, eyes closed,
earphone string peeking out underneath her collar, a wonderfully comfortable act.

And it’s funny that it’s through a photo, moment reflected back at her, mediated through the
screen, that tells her what’s going on. The tug in her chest, that feeling in her stomach. Jimin
knows exactly what’s happening.

But by the tail end of the next year, Minjeong’s gone.

Jimin learns this the hard way: the one thing you can never outrun is your past. It never
leaves you, despite how desperately you might try.

The one part of an actor’s life she never ends up learning to love is the interviews. She’s not
tremendously good at expressing herself: it’s why she chose this career path in the first place.
She’d always been drawn to other people’s stories, other people’s words.

Soon, the countdown. When the camera’s button blinks red, she plasters on a smile.

It’s the same sort of thing she’s been getting—most of the people who do these kinds of
interviews are nearly the same, after all. Variations on a theme: Any interesting stories from
shooting? How was it working with X or Y actor? Why did you choose this film? How does it
feel that high level directors are picking you as the actress they most want to cast? What sorts
of projects do you want to do in the future?

She grins and bears it. Retains her general image as she does so: quiet, somewhat reticent,
funny when she needs to be. Keeps playing “Karina” as best as she can.

And then one comes from left field. The journalist flips to the next page of her pad: “So—
sources say you’re from the same hometown as Aespa’s Winter, and you’re around the same
age. Did you guys know each other back then? Were you friends?”

All the air is pulled out of her lungs immediately. Every memory she’d left back home, every
song she’d ever listened to up until the age of sixteen starts playing in her mind.

But she’s not an actress for nothing, so she keeps it together.

“We went to the same school, actually. She was always talented, even back then.”

“Do you listen to Aespa’s music now? Has she changed a lot since you knew her?”

Jimin chuckles. “I do. I like their recent song a lot.”

She doesn’t answer the second question. She doesn’t have the answer.

The journalist clearly wants to keep going, but she shoots a quick look over to her manager,
who signals the interview’s wrapup, and soon they’re all saying goodbye.

The minute she gets outside she lights a cigarette, breathes in the smoke, feels the light buzz.
Exhales it into the cold night. The moment is so cliche it reminds her of a song she used to
listen to in her final year of high school, always standing out where the teachers couldn’t see
her, earphones in while she smoked in secret. The season’s changed like that / but I still can’t
forget, the song said, then quietly lamenting a confession left unsaid. You’re running
endlessly.

All these years, all that came between them and still everything comes back to Minjeong in
some way. Thinks about that final year, which comes to her still as a prolonged ache—
Minjeong’s increased interest in becoming an idol, her casting at the dance festival, the
eventual audition and acceptance. She could feel her slipping away, and couldn’t do a thing
about it. All she could do was watch.

Jimin takes another drag. Ah well, she thinks, at least I haven’t run into her yet.
In the back of her mind, Jimin knows it’s going to happen eventually. It’s a small country, and
they live in the same city—figures there’d be some kind of encounter at some point. Invited
to the same party, maybe. Accidentally at the same restaurant.

But she doesn’t expect it to be at the Blue Dragon Film Awards. Their recent film, says the
director, is a shoo-in to win Best Film—it’s got that mix of artistic value and high box office
sales they’ve been loving in the past decade. Even if it doesn’t, a few cast members are up for
awards, and then there’s the tech-ier side, too.

There’s always a performer, doing whatever song is most popular that year. And, naturally,
this year has been all about Aespa.

Jimin has to sit in the audience, roughly three to five cameras pointed in her general
direction, and look completely unaffected. Smile genially, nod her head mildly along to the
beat as if it’s unconscious.

She can feel parts of herself shaking, just a little, so she hides her hands under each other,
tries to look at the other members. Focuses on the melody. Tries so very hard not to notice
Minjeong’s gaze traveling over to where she’s sat.

Winter, she reminds herself, this is Winter, not Minjeong.

Later, backstage, she’s getting properly dressed and made up so she can introduce Best Short
Film in about five minutes, when everything actually begins again.

It’s her stylist, who’s just finished her hair, who looks up first. Shocked face, bows in
greeting.

“Karina-ssi,” says Winter. “I heard you like our music.”

Jimin’s heart comes to a complete halt in her chest.

A beat passes, and Winter keeps going. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

Finally, words return to her.

“Winter-ssi,” she says in response, “it has.”

Obviously five minutes before introducing a national award doesn’t afford much time to talk,
so they plan to meet at a small, late night spot fifteen minutes from the venue, hours after
everything is done. Enough distance to not be followed, but enough to still be close.

Jimin finds herself staring at everything but Minjeong: the soju bottle between them, its
unscrewed lid, the wood grain of the table, the dried squid in its basket.

“So you can imagine my surprise when I go to a movie with some of the other SM trainees
and I see you in it, front and center.”

Jimin remembers that movie. The year after Minjeong left: she’d been on the audition circuit
for a few months, and ended up getting picked for a movie that had been in the works about a
national corruption scandal from before she was born, a political thriller that had attained
huge success. It basically launched her entire career: suddenly, the auditions were getting a
little easier, managers more eager to get her into them.

“Ah, I was only really supposed to try the whole acting thing out for a couple months,
because I begged my parents and my dad had a soft spot for going to the movies. And then
that movie came, and things just took off from there.”

The goal here has basically been to piece together the puzzle: what happened in all the years
that separated them? (Jimin mentally translates this to: just how big has the gulf grown?)

“It makes sense. I always remember you doing drama impressions in between classes, or,
like, obsessively going over the events of your favorite dramas and movies. Everyone knew
TV and movies were totally your thing.”

Minjeong, the whole night, seems to be trying very hard to make it seem like nothing has
happened, they’re still friendly, close. Pulling at the strings of memory, attempting to tease
out a forgone camaraderie. She laughs lightly after she finishes talking, and Jimin quirks a
halfhearted smile in response.

“Lucky things ended up like this. If I did anything else I think I’d be terrible at it.”

“Yeah, I really can’t see you as a bio major,” Minjeong quips, teasing smile on her lips.
Jimin raises her eyebrow; she’d forgotten that she even planned on that, at one point, that she
had a whole different life set out for herself than what she ended up with. And more than that,
she can’t believe Minjeong remembers.

“Good thing fate had a different plan for me, apparently.”

The problem with Minjeong is that it’s almost too easy to return to old habits. Everything in
her body is willing her to do so—text Minjeong whenever she sees something funny, or a
cute dog on the street. Send a screenshot whenever she’s listening to an old SNSD song they
used to play together.

Ah, all of this has gotten her more nostalgic than she ever lets herself be. She made the
mistake of telling her parents about her run-in with the younger girl, and now they’re
hounding her, asking Jimin to invite her over to dinner some night, have it be like old times.

Jimin knows that it’s a fool’s errand, trying to recreate a bygone past. It’s why she tries not to
indulge Minjeong too much, never ends up sending the text.

It’s a strange line they straddle, when they’re together: comfortable and fragile. The
foundation is there, the history always looming, but it’s like if they prod too hard at it it’ll
break.

She ends up meeting Minjeong’s other members, a few girls who seem sweet, if not a bit
mischievous. One of them, a girl with dyed hair and wide eyes, nearly screams when Jimin
walks into their dorm, apparently a huge fan of her last drama. (The irony, Jimin thinks:
celebrities fangirling over other celebrities like teenagers. And then she thinks back on her
first time meeting Taeyeon and realizes she’s being hypocritical.)

And she learns about Minjeong, too. She learns Minjeong’s MBTI (though she could’ve
guessed it herself). She learns where she goes to get her morning coffees. She learns where
Minjeong likes to shop, eat, rest, what sorts of shows she likes to watch, what her least
favorite parts of being an idol are (dealing with creepy men, apparently), what the best places
in the SM building are to nap.
Most of this comes from Minjeong’s directive. She’s always sharing pieces of herself, trying
to show Jimin her world, paint a fuller picture. Jimin always responds, gives her little
anecdotes about the film and television industry or favorite whatevers from wherever, and
leaves it at that. Doesn’t go deeper; stays treading at the surface.

The thing is: Minjeong’s great. She’s even, arguably, gotten better over the years; seems more
sure of herself, knows herself more fully, is more generous and kind and open.

But it’s the pang in Jimin’s chest that always pulls at her when she’s about to go further. It’s
the fact that all of this, this expansion of the self, happened in her absence, when she was left
by herself, wondering with every spare minute what Minjeong’s new life must have been
like, imagining with a desperation that she’d never felt since.

In a way, she had Minjeong to thank for her career. After countless sleepless nights, Jimin
finally couldn’t take it, knew she had to throw herself into something, anything else. Couldn’t
be the only one letting life take the wheel; needing some agency; needing to escape. And
what better way to do that than literally leave your own life? Be someone else, at least for a
scene, or two, or a whole movie’s worth?

In any case, it’s fine the way it is, she thinks. Inching back towards a friendship. Meeting up
surreptitiously, exchanging playlist and film recommendations. Relearning each other’s own
personal languages.

Jimin’s okay with that.

Being an actress is great—most of the time. But there’s still so much Jimin’s not used to,
even after these years of it.

Namely: everything that isn’t the actual acting. When Jimin started seriously trying to enter
the industry, she was really only thinking of the craft. Bringing someone’s favorite stories to
life, like the actors in her favorite films and dramas did; moving someone to tears, making
them laugh with joy. Slipping into someone else’s life, and consequently bringing a whole
new person into the world, a simultaneous act of vanishing and creation. But what she didn’t
consider was the celebrity of it all.
She didn’t seriously think she would get as big as she did, okay? So sue her if she still
grimaces when her manager tells her about another red carpet event, or when she has to go
out on variety appearances. When she has to wear a baseball cap and a mask just to leave the
house and meet her friends. When every one of her Instagram posts get constantly scrutinized
by netizens, wondering if she’d gotten surgery on this or that or whatever else.

God. If she had it her way she would just sit inside all day until whenever she had to film
next. Go out shopping once every few weeks, maybe. Stack her Letterboxd diary high with
just-watched movies, immerse herself entirely in her favorite directors’ worlds.

But all the press that came after they actually did end up winning their award meant Jimin
did, unfortunately, have to go outside and, even worse, talk to people. The kind of acting
she’s worst at: having to be herself, but at a distance. Her enough for people to get an idea of
what she’s like, the vague outline of her true self, but not quite so that people can touch her.
Because isn’t that the worst kind of pain—the kind when really someone knows you? When
you can be read easily enough to be hit where it hurts most?

She’s waving at the cameras, almost past the thick of reporters and random fans crowding
barricades, whispering through her blindingly white teeth, “Please kill me. I can’t take much
more of this.”

Her co-star morphs his dazzling smile into a brief laugh. “We’re almost done. I think you can
hold out until then.”

Jimin thanks every god out there when she can finally collapse onto the waiting room couch
some minutes later.

“Ugh, Jongin, I don’t know how you do this so easily. It takes, like, every piece of energy I
have to get through these.”

After downing a bottle of water, Jongin snorts. “How can you shoot the most gut-wrenching,
harrowing scenes known to man but you can’t walk through a bunch of reporters asking you
about random things? This should be the easy part.”

Jimin rolls her eyes, scrolls through the Naver homepage just to see what’s going on instead
of responding to his question. She doesn’t notice how he’s crept up behind her, watching her
screen.

“Wow, she’s so pretty it’s crazy.” Jimin jumps, before looking to where he’s staring, which
turns out to be a headline about Aespa appearing on some new variety show. Then his eyes
widen, turning to Jimin. “Wait, don’t you know her?”

“Uh, who, Min—Winter? Yeah, we went to school together. Why?”

Jongin settles down next to her on the couch. “She’s, like, my number one celebrity crush
right now. Ever since I saw her when that one song of theirs got really big. Hey, can you give
me her number? Pleaseee?”
He’s actually trying to make puppy dog eyes at her. Jesus, men are pathetic, she thinks, while
purposefully leaving unacknowledged the discomfort she feels thinking about someone being
interested in Minjeong (and, even worse, the reverse).

Incidentally, it’s at that exact moment when Minjeong decides to text her, which Jongin
clearly sees pop up on the screen. Before Jimin knows what’s happening, he’s reaching for
her phone (God, does this guy have any sense of privacy? she thinks), and he’s opened their
chat log.

“Hey—give it back—” Jimin struggles for the phone, but Jongin, who actually lifts weights
and can carry heavy things, is somehow strong enough to fend her off, even as he
simultaneously reads through the messages.

He takes a minute, but is quiet when he gives it back to her, avoiding her gaze.

“Never mind,” he says, and leaves to find another bottle of water somewhere.

Jimin’s a little confused, until she sees their chat, which she tries to re-analyze as if she were
an outsider looking in (like Jongin). It’s mostly Minjeong sending texts, but just viewing a
few sections she can see a plethora of heart-based emoticons, selfies, updates on happenings
and current feelings. And the last text, the one that Jongin clicked on:

kim minjeong: when can i see you again?

kim minjeong: i miss you :(

Jimin’s heart does a little stutter in her chest at the sight of it. Minjeong’s probably just going
a bit overboard with the whole “rekindling the friendship” thing; in all likelihood it’s nothing
to get excited over. But still: Jimin sees why Jongin misunderstood. They’ve always toed the
line between platonic and more, always been closer than the other girls in school. Of course,
on Jimin’s side there was more going on, and somewhere inside her, especially on those long
nights where she lets herself dive too far back into the memories, she thinks Minjeong
might’ve felt something too.

Scenes flash back at her: them holding hands down the streets, towards their apartment
complexes, just a little too old for it to be considered normal. Minjeong curling into her when
they watch horror movies, even though she was always the one to suggest them, and Jimin
wrapping her arms around her in response. Jimin borrowing her neighbor’s motorized
scooter, flying down the street, Minjeong clutching on tight. Most of all: Minjeong’s gaze,
always wide and open, always too easy for Jimin to read. Full with something like—

Huh. In any case, Jimin types a response, sends it off. Tries not to think too hard about things.
It’s a strange thing, living with someone’s memory. How even with someone’s absence, the
shape of them stays.

Jimin’s known since that moment in year one of high school: nothing was going to change.
That those feelings, finally lit up with recognition, were permanent. It’s maybe the only thing
she’d ever been sure of in her life.

True to her belief, Minjeong’s remained with her since they were sixteen. In the radio shows
she listens to (Minjeong introduced it to her: the one that reads letters from listeners, playing
wistful indie songs in between); in the way she always sets the TV volume to an even
number, like Minjeong would; in her habits of self-care during sickness (always ginger tea,
always more tangerines, like Minjeong used to scold her to do).

And in the more external ways, too. Back at her parents’ house, there’s still a photo of the
two of them, halfway through middle school, on a trip to Everland. School uniforms on,
smiles bright, future a comfortable hum in the distance. There’s a poster in her childhood
bedroom of a concert Minjeong dragged her to, that they skipped school and got into
tremendous amounts of trouble the next day for (it had been worth it, then, just to see
Minjeong’s face light up at the show). More, she’s sure.

And it’s not like Jimin has stayed completely stuck, okay, she’s had her share of relationships,
of heartbreaks. With real feelings, too. Co-stars; friends of friends. One of them serious
enough to have been public, even (though they broke up that same year).

Her manager doesn’t know any of this until one lonely, drunken night, hours after Jimin had
arrived home from a team dinner, pouring herself drinks in her dimly lit living room. Got the
whole story, from day one, something only the verge of blackout could bring out from her.
Jimin, usually the last to let her real thoughts into the air, suddenly so sick with remembering
that it spills out, containment impossible.

Aeri’s attentive, aware of how serious this all is to inspire such a deviation in Jimin’s typical
behavior, lets Jimin cry on her shoulder and do all the things she never did before.

So when Aeri finds out that Jimin’s hanging out with Minjeong now, after all this time, she’s
justifiably a little suspicious.

“Jimin, are you sure this is a good idea?”

Jimin looks up at her from her mobile game. “I’m a big girl, Aeri. I can take care of myself,
don’t worry.”
“It’s literally my job to worry about you. Like, that’s what I get paid to do.” Aeri’s never not
at least a little sarcastic. “But seriously. I care about you, and I don’t want you to get hurt. I
just don’t really see why she’s contacting you after all this time. It’s not like she couldn’t
have before.”

Yeah, Jimin’s thought about that too. And, to be honest, she doesn’t really have a solid
answer except that maybe Minjeong just wasn’t ready until now. God knows Jimin wasn’t.

“I’m not going to concern myself with trying to dissect Minjeong’s mind, or else I think I’d
go crazy. And nothing’s happened; she just likes to get together and fill me in on the idol
world gossip and talk about memories from when we were, like, thirteen. Don’t worry—the
minute anything gets weird or something goes on you’ll be the first to know.”

Aeri still doesn’t seem convinced, but she lets it go, going back to scribbling something in
her calendar, probably some CF filming or company meeting or whatever. Thank God for
Aeri and her human-scheduling efforts.

She’s a good friend. A great one, even; most people aren’t close with their manager in the
way they are. But whether Jimin really believes herself or not—that Aeri has nothing to
worry about—she doesn’t know.

Jimin remembers the day Minjeong left: teary-eyed (sobbing, actually, the both of them),
clinging onto each other, swearing that they’ll still talk, that things will stay the same
between them.

She should’ve seen it coming. Despite Minjeong’s promises, things change.

It starts with the phones: the company takes them throughout the day, forces them to erase
traces of their online selves. Instagram accounts, Twitter accounts—gone.

Minjeong still KakaoTalks her, though, at night, until one day she doesn’t. She texts
frantically the next day: I’m so sorry, I was tired and fell asleep, I didn’t mean not to text. But
then she does it again. And again. And suddenly it’s been months, and she has no idea what
Minjeong’s life is like anymore.
And then she shows up, newly debuted, hair dyed and shorter than she’d ever seen it. The
song is good, but Jimin remembers watching the video in a daze, Minjeong the only thing she
could see.

That’s when it really sinks in.

After that final year together, Jimin watches it all from afar, watches Minjeong become
“Winter,” watches Aespa shoot to the top of the charts, watches the variety show
appearances, the award shows. Doesn’t even mean to, but ends up knowing when there’s
dating rumors, too. Damn Twitter.

She tries to forget all those times she’d call and text Minjeong, to no answer. All the times
she’d wish desperately for Minjeong to just send her something, anything, to let her know she
still cared about Jimin. How she learned just how much absence could hurt, like somebody
reaching directly into her chest, crushing her heart in their hands.

The walks alone to school. The way she never had an answer when her parents, classmates,
teachers asked how Minjeong was doing. The haunting realization that she’d never
confessed, and was being forced to live with all of this feeling inside her, like some sort of
curse, eating at her from the inside out.

Minjeong, today’s Minjeong, is clearly the Minjeong she knew: she still loves kongguksu;
she still has the same sour reaction every time she drinks; she still watches action movies and
loves autumn, despite her stage name. But there’s a distance, a question of time and space
between them, that Jimin can’t ignore.

Still, her body has its own memory separate from her mind. It feels undeniably right sitting
on the couch next to Minjeong, legs and forearms pressed against each other. It feels right
walking together at night, talking mindlessly about the day’s activities. It feels right just
being with Minjeong, whose smile is just as bright as it was when they were younger, who
still looks at her like she hung the stars in the sky.

There’s just always some little piece of her saying how long is this really going to last?
Ironically, it’s at the same little restaurant they met at the first time when it all breaks.

“You smoke?” Minjeong seems genuinely surprised.

Jimin takes another drag, then responds. “Yeah. I started in our—my second year of high
school.”

Hearing that, Minjeong frowns, wintery night air rustling her hair. Jimin knows why: that’s
the year Minjeong left her life, when they stopped knowing each other like before.

Usually, when something like this happens—something like this meaning some blatant
reminder of the gaps between them—they just move past it altogether, refusing to
acknowledge anything wrong. But Minjeong seems a little on edge today, fidgety, not entirely
present, and Jimin can’t tell why.

The younger girl’s quiet for a minute before she speaks.

“There’s so many of those little things.” When Jimin looks at her, puzzled, she continues.
“Those mysteries. Surprises. Call it what you want. The things I don’t know about you
because I wasn’t there to see them happen.”

She sighs, stares down at the ground, finishes her thought. “Sometimes I wonder if there’s too
many. If I’ll ever catch up.”

Something flashes inside Jimin. They’ve never really, honestly talked about it; this is all
untrodden territory. Jimin thinks all the years, all the silence is pressing together, causing this
white hot surge she’s feeling now.

“I mean, you might’ve known if you hadn’t disappeared off the face of the earth and cut me
off completely.”

Minjeong blinks in shock. Jimin’s not usually the hotheaded one out of the two of them, and
to be honest, Jimin wasn’t expecting that to come out of her mouth, either.

“I—I’m sorry, okay? I’m really sorry. I, when I say I didn’t mean to I’m being serious—”

Jimin scoffs. “Whether you meant to or not, it happened. And I appreciate you being sorry
and reaching out again, but let’s be real, Minjeong: nobody does that to their ‘best friend in
the world,’ okay?”

And since she’s already started, she figures she might as well go all the way. “Do you know
how it feels, Minjeong? Everybody asking me how you are and me being just as clueless as
the rest of them? Just having you gone like that, and then seeing you pop up in a YouTube
video, suddenly a different person entirely? Do you know that I started acting because after
all those years of being together I couldn’t take the silence of my own life anymore? Do you
know how it felt to just suddenly feel like I had half of myself gone? How for the next few
years after I couldn’t ever really believe people when they promised me they’d stay?”

Before she knows it, Minjeong’s crying. Not like tears she shed when she got stung by a bee
for the first time, when they were twelve; not like the tears from when the stray puppy they
used to visit near the park found a home and they couldn’t play with it anymore; not like the
tears from when some boy in their class called her annoying. Closer to those from their final
parting, at age sixteen; more visceral, more gutting.

Suddenly, Jimin’s a little panicked. Maybe she shouldn’t have gone that far, she thinks, and
then chides herself. Everything she said was true; it’s just that Minjeong makes her soft. She
can never really be harsh with the other girl.

Tears still streaming down her face, sniffling, Minjeong responds. “It’s not like I wanted it to
happen, okay? They stopped letting us talk to people unless it was supervised, especially as
we got closer to actually debuting, but I would sneak my phone out and talk to you anyways.
And then I got caught, and I was punished, and it just…it wasn’t good, okay? But I didn’t
want to tell you what a difficult time I was going through because I didn’t want you to be
worried and I already felt so bad for having to leave you in the first place and, just.”

She takes a minute to catch her breath before continuing. “Then we debuted and everything
got so hectic and messy and, Jimin, it’s just. When people say being an idol is busy, they’re
not exaggerating. That whole first year I don’t think I got any sleep. It’s like a fever dream.
Ning and the rest can tell you. We barely had time to eat or breathe, let alone talk to our
family members or anyone else, and then the promotions ended and the year went by and
then I realized how long it had been since we spoke. And I couldn’t face you, okay? You
were—are the most important thing in my life. I was so ashamed of how long it had been,
and I just kept wanting to talk to you and then the fear kept holding me back. That you
wouldn’t want to see me, that you would have someone else that took my place, or even
worse, that you’d just forgotten about me.”

At the last sentence, a sob makes its way out of Minjeong’s throat. Jimin honestly, truly, does
not know what to do.

“Was it…was it really that bad? That time when you were away?”

Minjeong swallows, nods. Her voice is smaller than it usually is. “It was just…so hard. I used
to fall asleep crying, sometimes. And it was worth it, sure, and I’m glad I’m finally doing
what I love and it’s all paid off, but, God. It was so much tougher than I thought it was going
to be.”

Jimin can feel her heart breaking at the image of Minjeong, sixteen and alone, crying in her
dormitory bed, all those miles away.

“I—I wish I had known. I wish I could’ve been there, and that we both wouldn’t have felt
how we felt.”

Minjeong smiles at that, through her teary eyes.

“Jimin, you’re my best friend. You’ve always been my best friend. I thought about you every
second since I left. I remember back at the beginning, back when we had phones, my
wallpaper was a picture of us. People used to ask me all the time who you were, and I would
tell them all about you.” She stops to chuckle. “Pretty much everybody I trained with back
then knew who you were, and all about the things we would do together.”
Jimin bites her lip. Can’t say the things she wants to say, so instead she says this:

“You know, I still make playlists the way we used to. Like it’s telling a story. And I still
always go outside when the first snow of the year comes and take a picture, like how we
would always do, even when I don’t feel like it. There’s a lot more, too. A whole list.”

Minjeong smiles at that. Looks down, then starts speaking.

“Did you know I’ve had your number for the past few years now? Just sitting in my phone.”

Jimin blinks. Minjeong continues.

“I got it from one of the stylists at the hair salon you go to, because we started going too. I—I
could never bring myself to press call, like I always wanted to. I swear I’ve opened your
contact a million times and just stared at it.”

“I—Minjeong, what—“

“And then I heard that interview you did, the one for your last movie? During the press tour?
Where the reporter mentioned me. I don’t know how she found out about us knowing each
other, but that was the thing for me. I knew I had to talk to you again. And then I realized
you’d be at Blue Dragon, and I knew that was my chance. I just prayed that you wouldn’t
immediately send me away or say no.”

Jimin steps closer, into Minjeong’s space. Forces her to look up at her.

“Hey, we’re here now, alright?” Minjeong looks straight into her eyes, and Jimin can see
everything she feels. Every compounded instance of sadness and guilt and hope, all swirling
in her gaze, the most raw she’s ever seen another person. She’s sure the same goes for her;
Minjeong’s always been the one person Jimin can’t act in front of. “There’s too much
between us for…everything to just disappear. Honestly, I think even if you hadn't reached
out, the universe would’ve brought us back together sometime or another.”

And Jimin hates to say it, but even despite her hesitance at Minjeong reaching out to her,
despite all the worry and even fear, at times, being with Minjeong again has always felt like
coming home.

Minjeong looks so small, and so vulnerable. “Can I hug you?” she says, voice trembling.

Jimin nods, takes her in her arms. And Minjeong’s not the same as she was at sixteen, sure.
She’s a little thinner, and her platform shoes mean she’s got a few extra centimeters that
weren’t there before. But she fits just as perfectly in Jimin’s embrace, and that’s what matters.

She tucks her chin into Minjeong’s head, can feel her resting her cheek against Jimin’s chest.
Wonders if she can feel Jimin’s heartbeat. Knows she can; holds her a little tighter.

They don’t need to say anything else. It’s that same lexicon they developed all those years
ago, only intelligible to the two of them. Both of them know that a single conversation can’t
heal a wound that took years to develop, but they know that they’ve passed the horizon, that
the worst is over, that they can look to the future now instead of only living with the past.
It’s a start. And to Jimin, a start is everything.

With that, Minjeong fits right back into Jimin’s life. They don’t pretend that nothing
happened—that’d be impossible—but they build their histories back up. Filling in the
missing spots, slowly assuaging the mutual ache of their separation.

Like when Minjeong has her over to the Aespa dorms, telling trainee day stories over wine
with the help of one Ning Yizhuo. Jimin’s nearly doubled over with laughter, imagining the
face of a newly-entered trainee Minjeong being caught with a backpack full of convenience
store snacks. And with every furthering of the description of the company employee’s face
that Yizhuo provides (“it was so red, like a balloon—or, wait, like Rudolph’s nose, or, wait
—”), she just laughs harder, until she thinks she might die with the way her abs hurts.

Or like when Aeri, who’s finally begun to warm up to Minjeong, talks about the time Jimin
accidentally ran straight into Jo Insung at an afterparty while beelining to the bathroom
because of how bad she had to pee, ending with her spilling beer all over him. And all the
groveling she had to do later when they ended up working on a movie together. Jimin
grumbles about it while Minjeong stifles laughter.

(She also begins a habit, which Jimin protests at, of sending Minjeong pictures of Jimin
sleeping on set, seeing how many things she can stack on the actress’ face until she wakes up.
It’s quite a lot, as it turns out. Minjeong threatens to use them for blackmail if Jimin ever
releases any childhood photos of her to the press.)

Speaking of: they’re finally talking about each other in the press now. Jimin actually has an
answer when reporters ask her how “Winter” is doing—usually some variation of either
“busy working hard on the new Aespa comeback” or “oh, we just got hot pot the other day
together.”

People seem to be eating it up, too, which Jimin should’ve seen coming, but didn’t actually
expect. As in: every time they mention each other to reporters, video clips of the interviews
get shared around every social media site, people commenting on how adorable it is, how it’s
like a manhwa story, the idol and actress who grew up together and stayed friends all these
years. (Of course, they don’t know all the details, but they don’t need to.) Like, it gets to the
point where a picture of her and Minjeong out to dinner makes the front page of Naver. Is this
seriously what people care about? she thinks, but is still secretly pleased at all the comments
about how cute they look together.

And the year passes like that. Aespa ends up singing on the OST to her newest drama, and
she pops into the studio to watch, which ends up making the final cut of the song’s video. The
comments, of course, are filled with people gushing about the interactions between Aespa’s
Winter and Karina, how they’re always linked nowadays. (She definitely does not screenshot
any of them to look back on later.)

All the while, Jimin’s…feelings, which had never fully gone away, have made a dramatic
return, stronger than ever. Especially since they’re back to their old ways: always tangled up
together watching movies, or sharing snacks as they binge dramas with the Aespa girls, or
linking arms as they walk around the record store (for Minjeong’s new record player,
courtesy of Jimin—Minjeong’s last birthday gift). At every glance, every touch, Jimin’s
hyper alert, feels it with an added weight. And it seems like Minjeong’s almost more aware,
doing it on purpose. Always holding onto her extra tight, as if she might disappear in front of
her eyes.

She’s complaining about the entire situation to Aeri one night, airing her frustrations about
the whole being-in-love-with-her-best-friend thing (yes, okay, a little tipsy), when her
manager cuts her off in the middle of her sentence.

“Jimin, I’m going to be blunt with you. I didn’t like Minjeong when you first told me about
her because I thought she was a bad friend who strung you along for a while. Now that I
actually know what happened between you guys, and now that I’ve actually met and gotten to
know Minjeong, I’m reversing my opinion, because it’s extremely obvious what’s
happening.”

Jimin raises her eyebrow, looks at her expectantly. “And what’s that?”

“She’s in love with you, clearly.”

Jimin’s breath stops. “She—what?”

Aeri rolls her eyes. “I seriously thought you had figured this out by now. She’s, like, very
obviously in love with you. Hell, haven’t you seen all the comments online that say things
like “I wish somebody looked at me the way Winter looks at Karina?””

Jimin sputters. “I—no, people just say that about anything, it’s, like, a joke. That doesn’t
mean she’s in love with me.”

“Okay, but dropping everything in the middle of filming a comeback just to send you a coffee
truck and personally visit might. There’s a reason I manage actors and not idols, Jimin; even I
can’t deal with the kind of atrocious schedules they’re on, so her doing that means a lot. And
don’t forget about the way she literally hangs off of you like a koala basically every time
you’re together. Or how she’s pretty much always praising anything you’ve ever done, even
those terrible first commercials you did for that yogurt company, and yes, I love you, but you
have to admit they weren’t very good. Or the way she has every single possible fact about
you memorized, down to what type of materials you like your socks to be made of? Who the
hell knows that? We practically live together and I don’t even know that. And also, oh, yeah,
the way she looks at you like you personally placed the sun in the sky just for her. Seriously,
Jimin, it’s incredibly obvious to everyone else. You’re just blind to it because you’ve spent so
long thinking it was unrequited.”

Jimin frowns, mulls it over. “I—”

Aeri groans. “Don’t philosophize over it, just accept it. Even Ning Yizhuo agrees with me,
and she actually does live with Minjeong, so that should mean something.”

Her mouth drops open, scandalized. “You talked about me and Minjeong to Yizhuo?!”

“Yeah, we were both tired of you two dancing around each other. She told me about how she
basically knew everything about you before you’d even met because of how much Minjeong
would agonize over your whole…thing to her, and how Minjeong is really unsubtle about her
feelings.”

Jimin takes a minute to consider things. “Okay, but if you’re so sure she’s in love with me,
why hasn’t she said anything yet?”

Setting down her glass, Aeri responds. “Think about it, Jimin. She was the one to leave and
cause that whole mess. She was also the one to go up to you, after all those years, and try to
rebuild your relationship, even with the possibility that you might reject her. Of course she’s
waiting for you. It’s your turn. You need to be the one to take the lead this time.”

Jimin takes another swig of her drink, and makes a decision about what she’s going to do
before she can sober up and stop herself.

It takes everything in her not to talk herself out of it.

It’s too cheesy, she thinks, and then keeps flitting about, resisting the urge to text Aeri for
probably the fifth time that night to ask if she’s really sure about the whole Minjeong thing.

(Aeri’s response after the last text had just been the annoyed looking up emoji and an all-caps
plea to stop worrying for the love of God please it’ll be fine.)

Minjeong looks as pretty as she always does when Jimin opens the door, wears that same
smile that she seems to reserve only for the older girl, hugging her upon greeting.

When they get inside—shoes and coats off—it seems like Minjeong immediately picks up on
Jimin’s nerves.

“Hey, what’s up? Is everything okay?”

Jimin puts on a smile, despite her inner emotional turmoil. “Yep! Everything’s totally fine.
I’m great!”

Minjeong frowns. “Jimin, you’re forgetting that I know you. You might think you can fool
everybody else, being an actress and everything, but I’m not everyone else. What’s going
on?”

Jimin sighs. Damn her inability to lie to Minjeong. No better time than the present, she
thinks. “Okay, so, I kind of have something for you? It’s not for some kind of holiday or
something, but, it’s, like—well, okay, let me show you.”

She instructs Minjeong to sit on the couch, and pulls out the record she had hidden behind a
stack of coffee table books sitting on her media console.

“So, basically: the first gift I got you since we started talking again was the record player,
right?” Minjeong nods. “Well, I kind of wanted to continue that, so I had this record specially
made.”

She hands the vinyl to Minjeong, who looks over it curiously, and continues. “I, um, basically
put together this playlist. For you. The songs are listed on there, on the back.”

Minjeong reads them over, immediately knows what the songs mean.

“Jimin, I—all the songs we used to listen to since we first met. Wow.” She points to the first
one on the track list. “I remember showing you this the first time you ever came over to my
house.”

Jimin smiles. “It goes chronologically, see, there’s the song you made me learn the dance to
that I almost sprained my ankle at, and there’s the one we used to listen to before gym class
to hype ourselves up to exercise, remember?”

Minjeong chuckles at the memory, holds the record in her hands like it’s something precious.
“And the one that I first sent you when we started everything again, when I could finally
actually use your KakaoTalk contact instead of just staring at it.”
“And your comeback song last spring, which I still think is really good, and that OST you did
for my drama. So, it’s basically, like, the history of us? In a playlist?”

Minjeong looks like she’s trying to hold back tears, unable to keep the smile off her lips.
“But, wait, what’s this last song doing here?”

Okay, this was a little self-indulgent on Jimin’s part, given how big of an IU fan she used to
be in middle and high school. It’s “Soulmate”, because she couldn’t think of anything that fit
her and Minjeong better—they might’ve waited all those years, but at the end of the day it’s
the two of them, always.

Jimin clears her throat, suddenly more nervous than she’s been in a long, long time. Not for
any award show, or audition, or anything. It’s this audience of one, sitting right in front of
her, that matters more to her than her entire career.

“Minjeong. In all honesty, when you first reached out to me again a year ago, at the awards
show, I was skeptical. I didn’t think we could ever be how we used to be again; I thought I
would always have to live with you in my memory. But you proved me wrong. And over the
past year, I’ve really had to come to terms with something that I’ve known for a long time
now, since before everything, when we were just two kids who would walk to school together
every morning, sharing a pair of earbuds.”

Minjeong’s looking up at her wide-eyed, with a deathly focus.

Jimin takes the plunge.

“I’ve been in love with you all this time. I thought it would go away, or maybe at least mostly
die down, but it didn’t. And after having you in my life again, I could feel everything I felt
for you just getting stronger and stronger. I mean, not to make this sound like a proposal or
something, but you’re basically my other half. I know you just as well, maybe even better,
than I know myself, and I know the same goes for you. I don’t usually believe in stuff like
that, but I think we’re fated to be together, don’t you? Doesn’t it feel that way?”

Minjeong’s face has split into a giant grin, but she still hasn’t said anything. Jimin’s running
on some jumble of nerves and adrenaline at this point, so she keeps going.

“I—right? Isn’t it strange how good we are together? Even random people on the Internet
think that, which is still crazy to me, by the way. But you make me better, in so many ways,
and also please feel free to stop me at any point if you also want to say someth—”

And Minjeong stops her, but not with words. Jimin, however, is very, very okay with that.

See, she’s imagined kissing Minjeong before, sure. Plenty of times, even. But what she didn’t
expect was the feeling: the relief, the warmth, the safety. Minjeong’s arms wound around her
neck; Jimin’s hands holding her waist, strong, steady. How Minjeong’s body presses against
her, seeking ever more closeness, her mouth always searching for Jimin’s, never seeming to
get enough.
“I love you too, by the way,” she says, after they finally pull apart, ridiculous smile on her
face that Jimin’s sure she shares. And as if she could read Jimin’s mind, “and your speech
was perfect. I like your words. You should use them more.”

God, Jimin hasn’t been this happy in…maybe ever? Her eyes are bordering on welling up,
especially at the sight of Minjeong’s joyful tears.

“I love you,” Jimin says again. She’d never figured three words could give her so much
freedom.

All the years that piled up under them, the tears they both shed under different roofs, the
distance that kept them as far apart as an entire ocean—all of it led to this. If this were a
movie, Jimin thinks, this would be her favorite part. Memories circling back around, all the
ways they never really left each other: this was the moment it all coalesced, the part of the
plot that made the whole film worth it. She can see the cameras on them now, the close up of
her hand dragging across Minjeong’s cheek, the unadulterated adoration in Minjeong’s eyes.

Maybe, someday, Jimin would like to try her hand at directing. She’s biased, of course, but
she does think they’d make a pretty good love story, all these messages about waiting and
heartache and fate swirling around in there, too. And Minjeong can be on the soundtrack, of
course, her sweet voice narrating the film’s decisive moments. Because there can be more
than one, Jimin realizes, belatedly; you can never expect all the ways your life can turn
around. Look at her and Minjeong, after all.

In any case: she leans down, pulls Minjeong in again, pressing against her lips more softly
this time, which Minjeong smiles into. It’s here that the film should end, decides Jimin. The
camera pans out; the screen fades to black.

.
End Notes

apologies kind of getting back into the swing of things so this is not my best work lol. also
apologies for my excessive use of commas (and colons). on a separate note the song from the
middle is "the day it snowed" by jaejoo boys which is on the soulmate (2023) soundtrack i
promise it had its place in this fic i usually hate songfics sorry lmfao. thinking also about
céline sciamma’s quote about a relationship being about inventing your own language.
anyways this all got kind of out of hand i meant to write a short little thing that was primarily
melancholic and now i’m writing this…cheesy whatever this is instead of working on my
midterm essay. oh well! (was also thinking about writing one of those even cheesier
epilogues where they’re like married or something OR where it’s like. netizens talking about
how cute of a couple they are or something like that idek but then i was like eh maybe a bit
too much so just imagine it ig.)

(also i restarted twt just to like rt kpop girls and shit LMAOOO so follow me @perfectbleus
<3)

Please drop by the Archive and comment to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!