i love you, so? - sooshu

chapter 3

autumn is the season after summer, when leaves fall from trees. it's also the season when the days get shorter and colder, and everything turns brown and drab, but people like it anyway, for the cocoa and cider, probably.

in this time when earth wears her most warm of home-heath hues, her breeze is as a shuhua's kiss to the cheeks of all.

"ugh this little kid. is she still not coming home at this timing?"  soojin glanced her unlocked phone, not receiving any news of shuhua.

2.48 am.

usually at this timing, the both would already be sleeping. or probably watching dramas together while shuhua clings onto her like strands of spaghetti.

soojin walked back and forth around the playground beside shuhua's old dorm where soojin and the latter first met.

the abandoned playground has become part of the art of the wintry landscape, a pop of colour in grey mists.

unlike how it used to be.

the playground has long since been in the company of the wildflowers, the flecks of rainbow gloss mirrored in the petals that come to return the exuberance that belongs here. there are times the rain sounds as laughter and the wind in the trees is the whispering of young friends. It's lovely to see it was so alive in its own way.

soojin loved it. she loved the tranquility, the happy echoes of the countless times of laughter shuhua and her made when they were in middle school. so, though the roundabout stays quite still, it moves her everyday. it feels as if the happiness that once lived there still remains, seeped into the houses, ready to infuse soojin with long ago joy.

well, you may be asking why soojin was at the old dorm, and not the new one where they are living in right now right?

soojin noticed a strange habit of shuhua. shuhua enjoyed the vintage and finer things in life. that includes reminiscing the past and often returning back to the town where they both studied, with the other girls.

"jin?"

ah yes, soojin was right. she knew shuhua too well.

soojin pursed her lips as she gripped her hands inside her pockets. "here we go... now or never."

"what are you doing here?" the taiwanese asked, simultaneously tightening her grip on the plastic bag she was holding.

"are you going to drink?" soojin took a step closer as she glanced at the outline of beer and soju. she didn't like it when shuhua drank. not because she couldn't control herself. but she would be grumpy. soojin could totally delineate hungover shuhua anytime you ask her to.

she took another step forward as silence covered the air.

"yes—"

"can we talk?"

they both said in unison. their breath rose with a jocund vibe to greet the wintry cloud, to become a tiny part of warming up the cold.

shuhua hummed in response as she tugged soojin's arm, entering the playground.

the abandoned swing had a musical creak, as if in all this time it had become both entertainer and audience.

"have you eaten anything?"

"no."

"you sh—"

"i got ramyeon for minnie unnie and i." shuhua lifted the bag as the food and drinks inside shuffled one another.