#admin princess

“It’s the Friday Wind Down, babe, you listen to it every week.” She reminds you.

“Right. Must’ve forgotten what day it is.” You say.

It was a habit you got into during your freshman year. You had turned to one of the university radio stations by accident while you were studying for an exam. The music was good and the commentary was intelligent and agreeable, so you kept it on.

You clean up the mess, somehow managing to avoid accidentally cutting yourself on the jagged edge of what used to be your favourite mug. You curl up on the couch beside Dahyun when you’re finished, throwing your legs over hers and letting her pull you into her side. You shove your face into her neck, letting her scent wash over you and make you forget about Vernon from the Friday Wind Down.

“So, why no radio show?” She says. Her voice is muffled by your hair and the vibrations of her speaking into the top of your head send send shivers down your spine, but you like it that way.

You’ve always liked this kind of domesticity. Affection has always been easy between the two of you. It’s always been cuddling up together on your couch or on her bed, sometimes exchanging soft, chaste kisses under dim lighting. Seldom has it ever led to anything more.

“I haven’t seen you in a while. Is it wrong of me to want to spend some time with my girlfriend?” You say, pressing your lips to her collarbone. It’s the easiest place to reach without moving too much from your comfortable spot.

She scoffs in the way that she always does when she doesn’t believe you; air passing through her lungs in a mixture of a laugh and a snort. She also taps your shoulder with her fist, and you know that you’ve been caught.

“Fine, I rented a movie and I haven’t had the time to watch it yet and it’s expiring tomorrow.” You say. This time, she doesn’t catch the lie. You watched the movie yesterday.

-

Days pass and you almost forget about Vernon from the Friday Wind Down completely. If it weren’t for Dahyun texting you on Tuesday to tell you that “Chaeyoung listened to the Wind Down on Friday. She said this DJ’s better than the last one”, you would’ve forgotten completely.

Dahyun is soft and warm and everything that you want in a significant other. She understands you as much as you understand her, she makes you laugh when you’re upset. She acts more like your best friend than your girlfriend, but with kissing and feeling and dinners with pretty lights every now and again.

“Y/N, come back.” Dahyun whines. She’s lying in her bed snuggled up in her duvet.

“I have to pee.” You say, biting back a laugh when she puts on a big pout.

“Can you tell your bladder to wait? I want kisses and cuddles.” She says. She pulls the duvet off of her body, making a pocket for you.

You sigh, your face lighting up in a smile as you trudge back to her bed. She grabs you before you’re even down, pulling you onto the bed and into her arms. You land with a huff and a giggle. She pulls you on top of her, lips slotting together with yours. You kiss her, playfully nipping at each other and giggling together. Your hands find her face, cupping her cheeks. You pull away from her, just staring at her as she lays under you. Her chest is rising and falling at a quicker pace than it had been before, and her eyes are shining with light.

“Baby, how do you feel about soulmates?” You ask.

She smiles at you. “We’ve talked about this. We both have soulmates, but we also have each other. And I like us better.” She says.

She traces the heart shaped mark under your eye, a constant reminder that neither of you are destined to be together. You grab her hand, stopping her in her tracks, and you place a kiss to her open palm.

“Come on,” You say, kissing the tip of her nose. “I’ll make breakfast. And, you have a class in an hour, so…”

She groans, but she lets you tug her out of bed and into the kitchen.

-

“So,” Dahyun starts. “Are we listening to the Wind Down later?”

You’re on the phone on your way back to your apartment from a lecture. You freeze, your mind drawing a blank when you hear the name. Even just thinking about that voice makes your spine tingle, it makes the mark on your face start to burn.

“Uh, yeah, if you’re coming over.” You say. You seat yourself down on your couch, finding your legs suddenly weak.

“Of course I’m coming over. I wanna see my you.” She coos. Your cheeks burn for a different reason now, and you find yourself smiling without even knowing it.

“Okay. I’ll see you later, then. I have to get some work done sometimes, you know. It can’t be all play and no work. Bye, baby.” You say, biting at your lip.

You hang up after that, gulping down the lump in your throat that seems to have formed. It feels weird to feel so guilty for being in love when you know who your soulmate is. Half know. You’ve only ever heard his voice once over the radio.

You work mindlessly on essays and assignments until you hear the door of your apartment open. Dahyun lets herself in, wordlessly walking over to your stereo and switching the radio on just in time.

“You’re listening to the Friday Wind Down. I’m your DJ, Vernon.”

You shiver. His voice is so much fuller than how you remember it, how it plays in your mind over and over again.

“I know Valentine’s Day has already passed, but I’m feeling a little romantic tonight. It’s like there’s this tension in the air around me, like someone special is listening in tonight.”

Dahyun tilts your head up and away from your work, leaning down to place a chaste kiss against your lips. You smile and give her a satisfied hum before she’s walking into your kitchen.

“I’d like to dedicate this next song to her,”

“Do you want hot chocolate or coffee?” Dahyun asks.

“or him. I’m open to anything, you know?”

“Uh, hot chocolate.” You sputter. “I’ve been having some trouble sleeping, I don’t really want any more of that.”

She pours water into the kettle as Lewis Watson’s voice starts to float around your house. You freeze up again, hugging your legs to your chest when you realize that he’s playing your favourite song. Vernon from Friday Wind Down is playing your favourite song. Your heart clenches in your chest and you don’t realize you’re crying until Dahyun is crouched in front of you wiping away your tears.

“I don’t get why you love such a sad song.” She says.

You shake your head. “It’s not that sad.”

“Baby, you’re crying.” She says.

“Oh.”

-

You almost miss Dahyun’s invitation to some frat party on a Thursday night. You almost don’t go because of an early class that you know Dahyun has on Friday mornings. In the end, you shouldn’t have gone. You wish that you had missed her invitation, that you had been able to convince her that a few extra hours of sleep would be worth missing a party with friends that she sees everyday. Her fingers are laced through yours, a cup of something alcoholic in her other hand. You’re resting a hip against the kitchen counter, occasionally interjecting the conversation that Dahyun is having, if only to convince yourself that you’re socializing.

You start to tell Dahyun that you’re going to get a bottle of water, but the air around you starts to fizzle before you can even open your mouth. Someone bumps your shoulder on their way past you, and your skin burns. It starts at the point of contact but it flourishes, like a flower blooming or a fire spreading.

You catch his eye as someone drags him past you. Time seems to slow around you until everything comes to a stop and the only thing left moving is him away from you, his eyes still boring holes into yours.

“Y/N? Baby? Are you okay?” Is what breaks you out of your fog.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” You say.

Dahyun gives you a skeptical look before saying okay and letting it go. Part of you doesn’t want her to let it go. Part of you wants her to dig and dig like she does sometimes; for her to get so skeptical and paranoid that she doesn’t stop questioning you until your arms are around her, comforting her. You want to open your mouth and let this entire thing free, you want to let her know about Vernon from the Friday Wind Down. Your entire being is begging to be set free, to follow him to wherever he was being dragged off to. And eventually, you give in.

“I’ll be right back, okay?” You whisper into Dahyun’s ear.

“Okay,” She says with a nod and a peck on the lips.

You chase after him, your mind working at a frantic pace to try and remember which direction he was going. You end up standing on the back porch, seeing him sitting in a circle playing spin the bottle. It’s like he can sense your presence, knows when you’ve entered the room. He locks eyes with you almost immediately. There’s no denying that this Vernon from the Friday Wind Down is unbelievably attractive. You don’t think you’ve ever seen a boy this good looking. Ever.

And then, he’s standing right in front of you.

“Hi, I’m Hansol.” He says. It’s an awkward way to start a conversation, but you think that it would’ve been worse if he had started off with ‘hi, we’re destined to be together’.

“Hansol,” You test out, your tongue curling awkwardly around the foreign pronunciation.

“Er, it’s Korean. My friends here just call me Vernon. It’s my middle name.” He offers up. Your heart stops when he says Vernon, even though you made the connection a while ago. This is just verification for how screwed you are.

“No, I’ll get it eventually. My girlfriend’s Korean.” You say. His face pales when he hears the word ‘girlfriend’. “I guess I have a type.”

You mean it as a joke, but he just shrugs it off with a “nah, it’s not like you chose me.”

You stop, feeling your heart drop into your stomach.

“Right,” You say. “I- My name’s Y/N. I should- I should probably get back. I don’t want anyone worrying about me. See you around, Hansol.”

You can’t call him Vernon, not when your tongue’s been threatening to tie itself in a loop around that name for the past two weeks.

-

It takes a week and a half for Dahyun to notice that something’s wrong. Her lips find the corner of your mouth, pucker soon replaced by a pout when you don’t respond.

“Are you mad at me?” She asks.

You take her hand in yours, squeezing it in an attempt to comfort her. “Why would I be mad?” You say.

“Because I dragged you out to that party last week and you didn’t want to go.” She says. She tucks her head into your neck, nudging at you with her nose.

You hum in contentment. “I’m not mad. Yeah, I didn’t wanna go to that party, but I could never be mad at you.” You say.

She kisses you just above your shoulder, nipping playfully at you skin. You reach up to tangle your fingers in her hair. You massage your scalp as she places butterfly-light kisses all over your neck. It’s a nice feeling; intimate, calm, and domestic all at the same time.

“I love you, Y/N. You know that, right? I love you more than anything.” She says.

You grab her face and slam your lips together. It’s rougher than you intended, but it draws a high-pitched, sugar sweet sound from her throat that’s like music to your ears.

“I know, baby.” You say, letting your lips brush over the corners of her mouth. You’re about to say that you love her back when there’s a knock at the door.

She groans and whines, making grabby hands at you when you stand up to straighten out your clothes. You pull open the door looking more disheveled than you would like, only because you were afraid that whoever was out there would get impatient and knock again.

“Y/N?”

Your jaw goes slack. Hansol is standing in front of you, sweatpants and a t-shirt draping loosely over his thin frame. He looks boyish and cute, and your heart starts to pound in your chest.

“I didn’t know you lived here.” He says. He’s smiling, but you can tell that he’s struggling in the same way that you are.

‘You don’t know anything about me,’ You want to say. “I don’t.” You say instead, stepping to the side to let him into Dahyun’s dorm room.

He walks past you, dropping his head so that he doesn’t have to meet your gaze, not knowing that you’ve done the same. He clears his throat in such an uncomfortable and awkward way that it makes your skin crawl.

“Oh, Hansol. You’re early.” Dahyun says, standing up from where she was still sitting on the floor, slumped against her bed frame.

You look at her, finally taking a chance to really have a good look at her since the moment that you were interrupted, and you notice that you don’t feel the same way that you used to when you’d see her with messy hair and swollen lips. The feeling now is less of a burning in your stomach and more of a swelling in your heart.

“Sorry, I didn’t realize you were busy.” He says. It draws you out of your thoughts and back into reality.

“Early for what?” You ask.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. Hansol’s taking me to see an indie Korean film in the culture centre.” She says, smiling up at him. Hansol just stares down at his feet.

“Oh. That’s fine, I left the assignment I wanted to work on at my apartment anyway.” You say with a shrug. Dahyun pouts.

“I’m sorry, Y/N. It slipped my mind.” She says.

You give what you’re hoping is a reassuring smile. “It’s fine, Dahyun. Really.” You say, cupping her face in your hands and pressing your lips to her forehead.

You gather your things in a haste, feeling a mixture of guilt and jealousy settle in your gut. You want to leave now, mostly because you’re not sure who you’re more jealous of.

-

In the following weeks, you see Dahyun less than you ever have before. She visits your apartment twice, the first to borrow a shirt and the second to give it back. It hurts a little bit. You’re so used to her stealing your clothes, and you don’t know how to feel when she shows up with the shirt washed and folded.

The third time you see her, she offers to take you to dinner. You expect a dinner with just the two of you, and are surprised to find Hansol and his best friend, Seungkwan, sitting at the booth that she pulls you into. She pushes you into the seat across from her, seating herself next to your one and only soulmate.

They engage in conversation, one that you back out of as soon as you realize that you can’t relate to anything that they’re talking about.

“So, you’re Dahyun’s friend?” Seungkwan asks, voice hushed and hidden behind his hand.

“Girlfriend.” You say. You clench your fists in your lap.

“Oh.” He says, shock surrounding the exclamation. “I just thought- You know, she and Hansol are so close and they’ve only known each other for about a month,”

“And you thought that this was going to be them telling their best friends that they’re together? I’m not gonna lie, I was thinking the same thing.” You say.

“No, Hansol would never-“ He starts, but you cut him off.

“I was kidding.” You mutter.

He looks at you in disbelief. It doesn’t take long before his eyes widen and disbelief turns into something else, and it’s then that you remember running out of concealer in the morning. You turn your face away from him, placing your hand over your cheek.

“Hey, you-“ He’s cut off again, this time by the waiter coming by to take your order.

You eat in silence, if silence means the sound of Hansol and Dahyun giggling with each other like school girls. Seungkwan sneaks glances at you to try and confirm what he had seen, but he’s sitting on the wrong side of you. You only allow yourself a sigh of relief when Dahyun announces that she’s tired and ready to go home.

“I second that. Come on, I’ll drive you back to the dorms.” You say, scrambling from your seat. You’ve never felt more relieved in your life.

“Oh. Baby, you don’t have to do that. Hansol can give me a ride. He lives in my building, so he’s going in that direction anyways. Get some rest, I’ll pass by after class tomorrow.” She says.

You can feel your face physically hardening. “Okay.” You say. You lean down to kiss her but she turns away at the last minute, letting your lips land on her cheek.

Seungkwan stares up at you with what seems to be an ever-present look of shock on his face.

“Right,” You say. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

-

You have your first big fight with Dahyun on a Friday, an hour after the Friday Wind Down ends. The worst part about it isn’t even the yelling or the anger, it’s the feeling in the back of your head that’s telling you that you’re about to lose her.

“I don’t get why you’re so mad. I sat in the studio while he was doing the show, why are you so mad about that? I’m sorry for not inviting you, I didn’t even know that you still liked the show.” She asks. She sounds like she’s struggling to keep herself together.

“That’s not what I’m mad about, don’t you get it? I feel like I don’t see you anymore. We haven’t spent more than an hour together in weeks.” You say. Your eyes are burning with tears threatening to spill over onto your cheeks.

She drops to the floor, pulling her legs into her chest. “I’m sorry,” She sobs. “I’m sorry.”

“Dahyun,” You say. She ignores you and drops her head into her lap. “Dahyun, baby, please stop crying.”

You sit down beside her, pulling her to your side. Her head falls so naturally into the crook of your neck, and it makes you feel so guilty for being mad at her over such a small thing. And then you feel it. A gnawing feeling in your gut that she isn’t telling you everything; that she’s saying sorry for more than one thing.

“You know you can tell me anything, right? I’m your best friend, not just your girlfriend.” You say, curling your fingers around her brunette locks.

You pet her hair for a while, letting her take her time with what she wants to say. You listen to the way that her sobs turn into heavy breathing and then back to the gentle, soft puffs of air that you’ve always associated with her.

“I- I,” She stutters.

“It’s okay, baby. Just tell me.” You coax her.

“I kissed Hansol.”

You close your eyes, letting tears roll down your face of their own accord. The room is silent for a while, save for the sound of your occasional sniffling.

“Dahyun,” You start, voice shaky, but you’re speechless.

“Please don’t leave me.” You hear her mutter.

“Dahyun, I-“ You still can’t think of anything to say. All you can hear is her repeating the word please over and over again.

You find it crazy that your apartment has so many hints of Dahyun. Her perfume clinging to the pillows and the drapes, little trinkets that she’s given to you that have collected over the years. You’ve been together since high school, your lives are so deeply intertwined that you don’t know how you’ll ever be apart from her.

“Thank you for telling me, but there are things that I haven’t told you either. Hansol’s my soulmate.” You say.

“Fuck.” The word leaves Dahyun’s lips so quietly. It’s the first time that you’ve heard her curse since her rebellious teen phase.

It feels like hours pass before either of you speak again. The tension in the room is so thick that even a power saw wouldn’t be able to cut through it. You try to think back to a time when you’ve ever felt like this around Dahyun, and you draw a blank.

“Do you want to be with him?” Dahyun asks.

You gnaw at your lips. “I’ve tried, Dahyun. I’ve tried so hard not to, but it’s like we’re magnetized. I’m trying, Dahyun, for you. For us. I love you so much, baby. I’ve never even talked to Hansol. How can I possibly be with him when I don’t know anything about him?” You say. She wraps an arm around your waist.

“110” is all she says.

“What?”

“110. That’s his dorm number. Drive me home, give me a goodbye kiss, and then go learn everything that you can about him.” She says.

“Dahyun, I’m not doing this to you.” You say. She ignores you.

“He’s so much like you. Maybe that’s why I was so attracted to him in the first place. And he yelled at me when I kissed him, you know? Told me that he’s waiting for his soulmate. For you.”

-

You do what Dahyun tells you. You drop her off at her dorm and you kiss her in the doorway. She makes you wait on her bed while she rummages through her desk. She pulls out a pack of makeup wipes and rubs one on your cheek.

“There. That’s more like it.” She says, placing her hand on your cheek and brushing her finger over the heart shaped mark under your eye.

“He keeps his covered, just like you.” She says. She starts to pull away, but you grab her forearm and hold it there.

“I love you, Dahyun. Always.” You say.

She scoffs, that the way that she always does. “You say that like we’ll never see each other again. You’re still my best friend, idiot.” She says. She shoves you off of her bed.

“Now, go. It’s getting late.”

You kiss her one last time, a soft brush of your lips over hers. Her eyes are twinkling when you pull away, but you don’t see a hint of sadness in them. Only happiness and love.

You leave her room on shaky legs and you knock on Hansol’s door with shaky hands.

“Hi,” You say, a little bit out of breath.

He’s wearing sweatpants and no shirt and he looks like he’s just woken up, but he smiles at you like you’re the centre of the universe.

“Hi,” He says back.

You spend the night lying in his bed side by side. You talk about music and the Friday Wind Down, and you don’t pull back when his hand brushes against yours, leaving sparks in its trail. You talk until the sun comes up and his alarm goes off. He laughs when he realizes that he’s had less than an hour of sleep all night and that he’s probably going to fall asleep during his lecture.