Yena remembered the first time she understood she liked girls.
She was thirteen years old, Juri had turned fourteen, they were in the same class. Yena remembered the little notes they would exchange during classes, the way she felt her heart beat so fast in her chest every time Juri would look at her, the way all her body was electrified when their hands would brush each other. They had kept their relationship secret, exchanging little kisses in the changing rooms when all the other girls had finished and had left, before their teacher would come and yell at them to stop chitchatting.
Yena also remembered the face of her teacher when he had caught one of their notes. But she did not remembered the words he had said when he had asked them to come in his office after school. She remembered making herself doze off when he had stated that it was a phase and that it would stop.
Maybe to Juri it was a phase, but even at that time, Yena knew it was not one for her, and as time went by she kissed other girls. Secretly. Stolen moments.
In her first year in college, she met Jo Yuri and Yuri changed her world. She was the girl she had dreamed of, she knew it as soon as their eyes had locked up. The kindness in her gaze and in her smile made her heart race in her chest. The softness in her voice when she said hello to her made her legs tremble and she felt like the entire world had stopped turning for a second. And then had started turning back, in the right sense, after all these years.
Yuri was a shy girl,Yena understood quickly that she lacked confidence, and she made sure to make her remember everything she loved about her. Her round and adorable cheeks that she would kiss tenderly, her honey like voice who would melt anyone’s heart, her wittiness that was making her even more endearing, her laugh that resonated in Yena’s entire body and gave her energy. Yena always told Yuri that they were a match made from heaven, opposites that attracted each other. She was the sociable, loud and bubbly one, that only Yuri was able to calm down. Yuri was the discreet, timid and reserved one, that needed Yena to let her colors bloom.
The first time they kissed was after a college party, in the middle of an empty street. The night was cold and Yuri was muffled in Yena’s sweater, she was tipsy and was not walking straight, laughing loudly every time Yena was saying something, holding her arm desperately so she would not fall. Their first kiss had been messy and had tasted like cheap wine and cigarettes smoke, but Yena loved how right it had felt at that time. The way Yuri’s fingers had immediately reached for her neck to push the kiss deeper, and the feeling of her hair brushing her cheek.
Yena had held Yuri’s hand so tightly when Yuri had presented her to her parents. When her dad had yelled and her mother had kept her head in her hands, refusing to look at her own daughter. When they had asked her to leave and not comeback. Yena had looked at them straight into their eyes, discreetly getting in front of her in the pointless hope that her body would be like a shield, protecting her from the harm those words were holding.
That night, Yena had offered Yuri her tiny apartment, her entire privacy and her bed for Yuri to cry herself to sleep in her arms. They had stayed awake all night long, only talking when Yena would whisper comforting words to her. Sometimes Yena would get up and fill a glass of water for the other girl, but she had held her until the early morning, when Yuri finally fell asleep. Tired out by the tears.
Yuri decorated Yena’s place with plants, fairy lights, cushions and warm plaids in which they would roll themselves in during the cold nights of winter. When Christmas was near and when Yuri would miss her parents the most. All Yena wanted to was to kiss away Yuri’s worries but the world caught them before she could fully do it.
If Yena had been used to hide her relationships and keep it in a secret place, even to find romanticism in the secrecy of the love, Yuri had troubled adjusting to it. The first time she kissed Yena after a class, made the entire students laugh and call them names, so Yuri stopped, her cheeks red and her eyes twisting with fear. The next day, Yena caught her crying reading testimonies of homophobia.
One day, Yuri told Yena about her first girlfriend in high school. She told her how happy they felt together. Then she told her about the bullying that happened when one of their classmate find them kissing. How the other girls started to look at her strangely, avoiding her, and slowly starting rumors about her. How her teacher asked her and her girlfriend at that time to stop seeing each other if they did not want their parents to know. How she had hid all this so deep inside of her for so long until Yena had came.
Yuri was a romantic girl. She had a wedding diary she had planned when she was a little girl, with the perfect dress and the perfect venue, she had organized all of it with collages of pictures from magazines she had found. She dreamed of dinners dates in fancy restaurants as much as home cooked meal in the light of a few candles, she was all in for heart shaped toasts in the morning, slow dancing, hand kissing and hand holding, late night walk around the river, unexpected flowers bouquets. And as time went by, Yena saw her ripped apart by this need and the fear creeping in her entire being.
Yena’s building had a living rooftop, where the tenants were allowed to go to if they wanted. It was a small space, with a questionable view and the awful noise of the building’s ventilation. It took Yena an entire afternoon and half of her savings for the month to redecorate it.
Yuri always finished studying late, she would comeback from the university’s library exhausted. She was a hardworking person, and she would barely complain, something that Yena had always admire. That night, Yena welcomed her inside of the apartment with a pretty dress on she had just bought, and another one for Yuri. When Yuri had raised and eyebrow, trying to understand what was going on, Yena had shushed her, and just asked her to trust her. Yuri had sighed and rolled her eyes but she had not been able to hide the curiosity sparkling in her pupils.
“Yena, I can’t see where I’m going,” Yuri whined as Yena made her follow her inside the elevator.
Yena laughed, “well that’s exactly why I put a blindfold on your eyes,” she held her hand a bit tighter, “don’t you trust me?”
“I trust you with my life,” Yuri immediately answer.
The other girl felt her cheeks turn red and she smiled. “Be patient, it won’t take too long.”
It had taken an entire afternoon to put tinsels on the rooftop, to light up candles in the shape of a heart on the floor, and some more on little tables all around the place, to manage to find a working speaker and the right music to play and to spread rose petals to form a home made dance floor. But it gave the entire world to Yena when she saw the happiness painting on Yuri’s face as she took off the blindfold from her eyes.
Yena took Yuri’s hand to make her move in the middle of the place.
“I wish I could show the entire world how much I love you,” she said, “I wish we could openly walk down this street, holding hands. I wish I could kiss you in the middle of the crowd easily, and make everyone jealous because we would be the most in love couple ever. I wish I could say to everyone that I am in love. In love with every part of you, and how lucky I am to have you in my life.”
Yuri sobbed quietly.
“I know it’s scary to be ourselves, that it is unfair that sometimes I cannot hold you in the street, that we cannot live our love the same way everyone can, that your parents still refuse to see us. But, no matter how difficult it might be, how unfair and beyond understanding it is, I am so happy I have you. And if I cannot shout it on this rooftop, I’ll find another way to say it….”
She came closer to Yuri’s ear, her hands around her waist, “I love you Jo Yuri,” she whispered, “I love you so much, and I never want to lose you. I’ll do everything to make you happy.”
Yuri held her even closer, starting to slowly dance at the rhythm of the music. She kissed her lips gently, her crying calming down as they danced.
“Everything is better with you Yena,” Yuri said back, her voice hoarse by the emotion, “as long as I have you, I can do anything. I love you.”