Last Saturday

ch.02

After 5 days of her 9-5 shifts, Minji’s weekend consisted of her visiting the park again, as usual.
She sees the same girl from last Saturday, she came in the afternoon this time, probably
coming back to finish her sketch early. The girl happily waves at her while minji awkwardly waves back, her brain distracted in aggressively attempting to remember the girl’s name.
“Hi Minji!” She giggles, “It’s hanni!” Right, that one.
“Hello.” She greets her back, trying hard to not look too rude, so she forces a smile at her,“You can sit.”And it’s the same all over again, hanni’s pencil strokes, the ocean waves, and the strong wind
that keeps minji in peace. The silence between them wasn’t awkward, but it was rather
comfortable.
They stay in the park until midnight, going back to their village like last time.
“If you don’t mind me asking, what do you do for a living?” hanni sparks out a conversation out of nowhere, and from the way she looked a bit nervous asking, minji figured that the girl was trying to get rid of the inner awkwardness she was probably fighting in her brain.
She helps her.
“I do office work at the Yeong-jo mall,” She points at the tall, glowing building from far away, it’s the biggest and most populous center of the city, “…always having a new stack of paperwork being thrown on my face every 2 hours. You?”
Hanni giggles, and minji swears her stomach just did something she swears that was scary for a second. Having absolutely no clue what just happened, she chooses to pay it no mind.
“I’m still looking for a job, but I sell paintings and do commissions and orders in the meantime. Honestly, it isn’t really helping me out, since I still live with my parents…” hanni blushes in embarrassment.
“Hey, don’t be guilty about it! Besides, you honestly look too young to be living alone.”
Minji jokes, and she feels her stomach do that scary thing once more when hanni glances back at her with a playful pout. Now she really wants to know what the hell was going on in her body.
“I’m 23.”
“Seriously though, you’re young. You don’t have to justify your independence as an adult by living alone. It isn’t an embarrassment to live with your family! I don’t think your parents mind, in fact, they’re probably happier knowing that their daughter is safe with them.” She tried to cheer her up, which was thankfully effective from the way hanni beamed at her after.
“You used to live with your parents too?” The younger girl asks in curiosity, “you seem to
have that experience.”
“No, they’re dead.” minji says in the most nonchalant manner, surprising her.
“Oh my god minji , I didn’t mean to...I’m so sorry-“ Minji chuckles, “It’s fine, hanni. They’ve been gone since I was 9, and our family
wasn’t that close anyway, so I don’t remember much about them anymore. I grew up with my older sister.”
She notices the guilty frown on hanni’s face, “Don’t do that.”
“Why?” hanni frowns even more. You’re cute. Minji was definitely not going to say that. She giggles instead, shaking her head slightly in her own disbelief, “It’s better when you smile.”
Much, much better.
(Minji fails to notice the blush on hanni’s cheeks.)
The two talked more, their legs going on autopilot, none of them noticing that they’ve
already arrived at the main gate of their subdivision.
Hanni bids minji goodbye as she walks to the other path, on her way to her house.
Minji waves back, and she stares at hanni as the girl continues to fade away and blend into the other people walking back home.
Her brain then goes haywire, her feet couldn’t move, and her body freezes, sending herself into complete shock.
‘My god.’
That’s what happens to her whenever she realizes that she had not only willingly talked to a person for more than 5 minutes, but also actively engaged in a conversation. It’s not like
Minji doesn’t know how to communicate, but she rarely does. It makes her feel like
some sort of alien. She finally calms down after a minute, scoffing and ignoring everything, slumpily walking back home like the mundane person she is.
————————————

It’s like those Saturdays became a normal routine for the two women. The first time becomes a second, the second becomes a third, and it goes on and on, with minji eventually losing count in the end. The weeks turned into months, and she and hanni became close friends
immediately. Minji’s walking to the park again, but her brain orders her feet to drag her somewhere else. The next thing she knows, she’s waiting in line at the ice cream truck a few shops away from the park. She has absolutely no idea what she’s doing and why she suddenly has two tubs occupying her hands when she doesn’t even know if hanni’s going to be sitting at the bench again, knowing that the girl had already finished her 3rd sketch of the ocean scenery, this time with obvious silhouettes of people walking by or staring into the view.
Her hand slips from the tree, and despite her not being too far from the ground, minji
still immediately catches both her upper arms, helping her unstable body land on her feet.
“You didn’t have to-”
“Better to be safe than sorry.” minji remarks.
“I didn’t need help, but thank you.” hanni turns around to face her, tapping her waist lightly.
“You almost landed on your ass.”
“I said what I said.” She laughs.
The taller girl doesn’t recognize herself smiling back due to how much she could feel her stomach fluttering.
Minji spots a familiar black stray cat sitting on the railings that separated the ocean from the land, and it reminds her of hanni on a Saturday around last month, quickly putting her things aside to pet the kitten.
“hanni what are you-” minji immediately adjusts her position on the bench, moving to the near right side in disgust.
Hanni had apparently carried the animal and placed it down in between them.
“He’s so cute! Do you not like ca- are you AFRAID?!” She exaggeratedly widened her eyes at minji
“Of course not! It probably has rabies, are you NOT afraid?!”
“Rabies in cats are RARE, minji!” she giggles.
She only scoffs in return.
When minji gets home, the first thing she does is open her phone and look up “do cats have rabies” in the google search engine, gasping out loudly when she finds out that it is indeed rare for cats to have rabies.
‘How did she even know that?’ she huffs to herself, throwing her phone towards the couch.
Remembering all of these can’t help but make her chuckle, and she only realizes it when a certain girl points it out to her.
“What’s so funny?”
She flinches in surprise, seeing a smiley hanni sit next to her as if she didn’t just give her a jumpscare.
“What do you mean?”
“You were laughing all by yourself just now. I actually thought you were going insane since you aren’t usually like that.”
“Me? I was laughing? Are you sure?” minji only gets more flustered and she panics
when hanni giggles at her.
“Yeah, maybe you are insane.”
She’s about to ask why hanni came here when she remembers that she had already finished her sketches of the view, but the younger girl beats her to it, asking something else herself.
“You must really love ice cream to buy two whole tubs.”
Minji was obviously not going to admit and tell hanni that she bought one of them for
her. She’s too much of a coward to do that. So she lies instead.
“Yeah, but you can eat this one if you’d like.” She gestures to the plastic bag that contained the other tub of ice cream.
Hanni hesitates for a second, eyes switching from minji and the ice cream tub on the
floor, but she still takes it, and that same hesitation is long gone when she takes the tub out of the plastic and reads the “strawberry flavor” text on it.
“Strawberries are my favorite! I even painted them on my bag! Thank you so much
Minji!” She excitedly opens the tub and takes the spoon to scoop a mouthful of ice cream for herself, humming in glee as she digs into it.
Of course minji knew that she loved strawberries, the darn tote bag is the exact reason
why she decided to pick that flavor in the first place. She watches hanni eat, and notices her eyes going wider every time she opens her mouth to take another bite.
At this point, hanni was slowly squishing her way into minji’s life, bringing brightness and vibrant hues to her gray and dead world. They were clearly opposites, but hanni still managed to complete her somehow.
Minji wasn’t used to it, she wasn’t used to talking a lot, smiling so much, and laughing whenever she was around. It made her scared. It felt surreal to her, her daily living filled with stress and emptiness was beginning to change, and she doesn’t like it.
She doesn’t like hanni.

She loves her.