∆ Cross My Mind || ChaeDa [ © honeyeji ]

03

"DENIAL is a GLASS HOUSE"

"Woah, I do NOT like Chaehyun," Dayeon said, still attempting to be laser-focused on an important paper. Youngeun smiled wanly over her water bottle.

"You definitely do," Youngeun said. "I see the way you look at her."

"And how do I look at her?" Dayeon asked, attempting to sound casual when her ears got warm.

"You look at her like she's the only person in your universe, like she's the sun and you're just a lonely planet, forever orbiting around her," said Youngeun, who won a national competition for poetry in high school. "It's rather poetic."

"It's always poetic when you say it," Dayeon said, and Youngeun's roommate, Bahiyyih, cut off any retorts when she arrived with her assigned reading she found in the library.

"Did someone mention poetry?" Bahiyyih asked, and pointed at Youngeun. "Did you know that Youngeun is a poetry goddess?"

"Only sometimes," Dayeon agreed and turned back to her paper. The blinking cursor kept blinking. Dayeon typed, "Therefore, the 1987 analysis ostensibly misrepresented the author's original thought" and tried not to think about how different her academic voice was from her actual voice, which used "aye" way more than she'd like to admit.

"Listen," Youngeun said, urgently, and Bahiyyih looked alarmed by her tone. "Figure out your feelings for Chaehyun. Denial isn't the way."

"You like Chaehyun?" Bahiyyih asked, delighted. "I knew it! You look at her with so much love."

"No," Dayeon said, desperate. "I don't like her. We're friends, psychos. I don't even know if she likes girls."

"She probably does," Youngeun said. "Sapphics always group together. That's why we're all friends."

Dayeon refused to see the merit in that statement, and deleted an entire sentence she mindlessly typed ("she likes girls"). "Let's just focus on our schoolwork."

Youngeun exchanged a glance with Bahiyyih, who shrugged.

"Denial isn't healthy," Youngeun reminds her, and they settle into their work easily after that. Dayeon looks at her paper.