Chapter Text
I’m so fucked, Sooyoung thinks as she wearily shuffles through the pages of drawings she’s done for her project. From a technical standpoint, they’re all flawless, little graphite renditions of Jinsol staring back at her from countless conceivable angles. But the drafting is the easy part, and Sooyoung glances at her laptop lying open on her bed, which displays an email from the studio tech reading: The Clinebell is ready.
Sooyoung grabs her phone, opens the thread she has with Jinsol, and types, I’m gonna start carving the ice this afternoon. Want to see?
She’s making good progress with transferring her finished design onto a sheet of wallpaper when her phone buzzes. Jinsol’s message reads: ohgouogughhh.
Sooyoung raises an eyebrow and waits. Soon another message comes:
jinsol: sorry, dropped my phone. i’d love to come see, is it the same place?
sooyoung: no, there’s a specially insulated room downstairs. wear something warm.
She sends Jinsol a map, then gets back to the template. Making it from wallpaper is crucial to transfer the design onto the ice, since wallpaper doesn’t tear when wet. Her phone vibrates again as she’s lifting up the sheet to flip it over, and Sooyoung almost tears it when she sees the photo Jinsol’s sent her of herself wearing a gigantic puffy coat. God dammit, she’s seen Jinsol nearly naked and this is what she’s gonna lose her mind over?
sooyoung: cute.
She throws her phone onto her bed next to her laptop.
-
Jinsol finds her standing over a 300-pound rectangular block of ice with a chainsaw, lopping off chunks at the corners and spraying ice everywhere while Feel Good Inc. blares at full volume from a portable speaker on the floor. Sooyoung doesn’t notice her arrival, either, so when Jinsol yells, “I brought food!” over De La Soul’s maniacal laughter, she almost drops the chainsaw on her foot.
Sooyoung puts the chainsaw down and pulls off her gloves, shouting, “Can you turn that shit off?”
Jinsol reaches down to switch off the speaker. “The acoustics in here are terrible.”
“Not exactly a concert hall, huh.” Sooyoung does a double take at the cartons Jinsol is holding. “You brought ice cream?”
Jinsol blinks. “It seemed appropriate.”
Sooyoung shakes her head, trying to suppress her grin as she takes the cartons and puts them on the workbench. “You’re a fucking genius.”
“I know,” Jinsol says, pleased. “What’re you doing?”
Sooyoung turns back to the ice block, which she’s plastered her wallpaper template onto. “Well, here’s the standard block that the Clinebell machine produces, it was left to temper yesterday and now I’m cutting out the silhouette.” She gestures to the rack of tools hanging next to the cork board on the wall above the bench, which is covered in to-scale drawings of the sculpture complete with measurements. “Once I remove most of the excess, I’m gonna switch to a die grinder, then as it gets more detailed there’s some other tools I’m gonna use.”
“How long is it gonna last at the exhibit?” Jinsol asks, poking at the ice block.
Sooyoung scratches her head. “Uh, something this size usually should last between four to six hours, so it should be fine for the whole event. Although, if I fuck this up royally I’ve arrange for it to melt away in the first five minutes.”
Shoving her lightly, Jinsol says, “You are not gonna fuck this up, Sooyoung. What’s the worst that could happen, anyway?”
“I overcut with the chainsaw and chop off where your head’s supposed to go,” Sooyoung tells her.
“Couldn’t you re-freeze it back on with some water?” Jinsol asks.
“Well, depending on the size, yeah.” Sooyoung squints at her. “Did you look up how to carve ice?”
“Of course I did,” Jinsol says, “I want to understand what you’re doing.”
Sooyoung feels that odd fluttering in her stomach again. She must be hungry. “Um. Want some ice cream?”
“No, it’s all yours,” Jinsol says cheerfully, pulling out her laptop from her bag and settling onto one of the stools by the workbench. “I’m gonna start on some homework and stop bothering you.”
Sooyoung finishes the entire blocking-in process that afternoon, which is probably the most difficult part of ice carving, as well as all of the ice cream. She’s working on pushing back levels, alternating between the grinder and the chisel, when there’s the sound of a laptop shutting and Jinsol says from behind her, “Want to grab dinner?”
A DATE? a primitive part of Sooyoung’s brain immediately hoots, but she quickly gets rid of that notion. There’s no way, she’s just a nice girl. Don’t get it twisted.
“I can’t, I gotta keep working on this,” Sooyoung says, brushing ice chips off her gloves. Jinsol slings her bag onto her shoulder, getting up to look at the ice.
“Oh, I can see it,” Jinsol exclaims, walking around the roughly shaped material. “The sculpture - it’s emerging.”
“Yeah, but it needs a lot more work,” Sooyoung says. “I’m probably gonna spend the next couple of weeks on it. If… if it’s not too much trouble, could you come by sometimes? I might need a live reference as I get into the details.”
Jinsol tilts her head. “Will I need to strip?”
“Ideally, no - well, not all the way,” Sooyoung says hastily. “It’s too cold in here for that.”
“Oh, I’m fine with the cold,” Jinsol says with a shrug. “That’s what the coat’s for, I could wear it on the outside. Oh my god, Sooyoung, your face is so red!”
Sooyoung bats away Jinsol’s hands, which are trying to poke her cheeks. She wants to sink beneath the floor. “It’s the cold. Anyway, tell Hyunjin I said hi and that Heejin is a loser. And also, uh, thanks for keeping me company.”
Jinsol finally manages to pat her cheek. “Of course, I like hanging out with you.”
-
So, she hasn’t screwed up anywhere too drastically on the sculpture yet, but Sooyoung has found herself in a bit of a pitfall. She’s hewing out the planes of Jinsol’s back with a large flat chisel, roughly shaping in the knobs of her spine, but it doesn’t look right and it’s driving her out of her mind. She’d texted Jinsol a little earlier, just a brief i’m in the freezer, are you ok to swing by for a minute? but she hasn’t received a reply yet.
The door swings open and Jinsol enters, slightly out of breath and her coat draped over her arm. “Hi, sorry,” Jinsol says as Sooyoung stops banging away at the ice block. “I was already on the way here before I saw your text.”
“It’s all good,” Sooyoung says, taking off her gloves to rub her hands together. The gloves may be thick, but they aren’t warm. “Actually, it’s not good, I’m going insane. Could you… uh… do you mind -”
“Yeah, give me a minute,” Jinsol says, putting the coat on a stool and unbuttoning the blouse she's wearing. “The pants, too?”
“No, just - that’s fine.” Sooyoung quickly pulls out another stool for Jinsol to sit on, feeling strangely shy. You’d think she would be accustomed to it by now. Jinsol tosses her blouse on top of the coat and brushes her hair out of her face before settling into the familiar pose in only her bra.
Tucking her gloves into her jacket pocket, Sooyoung goes behind Jinsol to observe the topography of her back, running her eyes over the exposed skin. She moves back and forth between the block of ice and her model, continuing to chip away at the emerging form. The chisel chews away at the ice, crystalline shards falling onto the floor with melodic plinking sounds. Jinsol is like a sculpture herself, except for her chest moving with shallow breaths; Sooyoung carves out the hollow of her spine, then moves up to the nape of her neck, where the cervical vertebrae jut out faintly. Reaching over, Sooyoung brushes Jinsol’s hair away from her neck, and the other girl shivers.
“Sorry,” Sooyoung says. “You all right?”
“Yeah, your hands are a little cold,” Jinsol replies.
Sooyoung can see the goosebumps starting to form on Jinsol’s shoulders. She grabs the coat and drapes it over Jinsol’s front. “Just a little while longer. I’m almost done.”
“I’m okay,” Jinsol says stoutly, and despite everything, Sooyoung feels warm.
She switches over to the die grinder to work in the smaller structural details, hollowing out the dips between Jinsol’s ribs. She feels Jinsol inhale against her hands as she measures the spaces between her ribs with her fingers. Sooyoung scratches guide marks into the ice with one hand using the drill bit as she runs her other hand over the dimples in Jinsol’s lower back, just above where her spine ends at the top of her hips. Jinsol’s skin is still addictively warm, and Sooyoung’s cold fingers leave rosy imprints at the slightest pressure.
“You’re so beautiful,” Sooyoung murmurs.
Jinsol’s breath stutters visibly at that, her back suddenly tense. Shit. Sooyoung pulls her hand away quickly, blood rushing in her ears. Her grip slips on the grinder, scoring the ice and glancing the tip against the palm of her other hand. “Ah, hell.”
Sooyoung drops the grinder, curling her hand against her chest. Luckily it hadn’t been on, but the needle bit is still sharp on its own. Blood is starting to well up from the cut, but Sooyoung is more worried about the mark on the surface of the ice, leaning down to inspect it.
Jinsol grabs Sooyoung’s wrist. “Sooyoung? Are you okay?”
Sooyoung grunts, rubbing her thumb along the groove she’d carved in the ice. “Yeah, nothing a little refreezing can’t fix.”
“No, you idiot, your hand.” Jinsol pulls Sooyoung’s hand away from her chest, prying her fingers open. “Oh, god.”
“It’s fine. I was just, uh. Distracted,” Sooyoung says. “There’s a med bag under the workbench.”
She cleans the cut as Jinsol puts her blouse back on. “It’s past seven o’clock, anyway,” Jinsol tells her.
Sooyoung ventures, “Food?”
Jinsol gives her a radiant smile.
-
Professor Kang thumps her Hydroflask against the lectern at the front of the classroom. “Students! Your advertisement preprints for the Music Performance department’s charity concert are due tonight at midnight!”
Heejin leans towards Sooyoung conspiratorially. “I heard you’ve been getting Jinsol naked.”
Sooyoung puts her index finger against Heejin’s forehead and pushes her away. “I heard you’ve been doing the devil’s tango with Kim Hyunjin.”
Heejin blinks at her, then breaks out into a grin. “We gotta celebrate! Drinks tonight?”
“Did you not just hear Professor Kang?” Sooyoung demands. “We got shit due tonight!”
“I’ve already turned mine in,” Heejin says smugly, and Sooyoung rolls her eyes. She keeps forgetting that the younger girl is actually a prodigious student because of… everything else about her. “What about your exhibit piece? Are you not done with it yet?”
“Almost,” Sooyoung sighs. “I just gotta finish the detailing and clean up the tool marks with the torch.”
“You’re saying you haven’t thrown it off the roof of the tallest building on campus?” Heejin gasps. “I’m impressed! What did Jinsol do to you?”
“She brings me ice cream,” Sooyoung says.
“You’re practically married,” Heejin tells her.
“Thanks for the heads up.” Sooyoung nudges her. “What about you? You’re already done with your painting?”
“Yeah,” Heejin says, then scrunches up her face. “I’m still kind of iffy about it though. That’s what sucks about finishing a piece early, you just stare at it until you hate it.”
“I have never had that problem,” Sooyoung states, and Heejin shoves her.
“Well, I’ll be looking forward with great interest to your piece,” Heejin says. “I’m gonna tell everyone there that they’re witnessing history being made, Ha Sooyoung sculpted the human form and of Jeong Jinsol no less! Put this shit in the textbooks!”
“Only half,” Sooyoung corrects her. “Everything from the waist down was from fish pictures on Google Images.”
Heejin pats her on the back. “That’s what I really admire about you, Sooyoung. Either your art brain is slightly stronger than your gay brain, or you’ve got some kind of weird fish thing going on.”
Sooyoung would have swung on Heejin if Professor Kang had not banged her Hydroflask again. “Your status reports for your Art as Praxis pieces are also due tonight at midnight!”
“Ah, shit,” Sooyoung and Heejin mutter in unison.
-
Sooyoung tilts herself backward in her chair, balancing on its back legs, while she takes another pull from a fresh bottle of red Kinky Vodka. It’s turning dark outside, the sun disappearing behind the walls of the loading dock as she sits alone in her favorite studio. The floor is covered in fluffy sawdust from her side project - wait, she’s not allowed to talk about that. Anyway, she’s been working diligently on her Art as Praxis piece every day, so she deserves to indulge a little, doesn’t she?
Her phone buzzes noisily on the table, and Sooyoung almost loses her balance, the chair legs coming back down. Fuck, this booze is strong. She scoops up her phone and squints at the screen, which for some cursed reason is at maximum brightness.
jinsol: hello? you’re not in the freezer??
Sooyoung whacks herself on the forehead, immediately feeling like an idiot. Jinsol usually comes by to visit her at around this time of the day, after her ridiculously busy schedule as a senior music performance student. Feeling like an asshole for forgetting, Sooyoung sends back a reply.
sooyoung: sorry, i’m in the studio upstairs getting shitfaced. :D
jinsol: DON'T MOVE i’m coming up.
sooyoung: awww are you worried that i’m gonna hit my headfhgdfhdhh
Sooyoung fumbles her phone, almost dropping the damned thing and managing to send the text by accident. Well, she’s beyond giving a shit and Jinsol would probably find it funny anyway. Anything to make Jinsol laugh, right?
She’s trying to adjust her screen brightness when another chair is pulled up next to her and Jinsol drops into it, clutching a lumpy plastic bag. “Oh my god,” Jinsol says.
“Hello to you too,” Sooyoung vocalizes, offering her the vodka. “Want some?”
Jinsol plucks the bottle from her hand and sets it firmly at the far end of the table, Sooyoung immediately wailing in protest. “Stop being so dramatic, you big baby,” Jinsol exclaims, holding her upright when Sooyoung slumps sideways into her lap. “I swear to god this shit must be a biohazard. Have you eaten anything?”
Sooyoung casts her mind back over the events of the day. Come to think of it, she hasn’t eaten since that morning, which would explain why the alcohol is beating her ass right now. “Uh, Hyeju gave me a bagel this morning.”
“That’s it?” Jinsol props Sooyoung up against her side and uses her other hand to root around in the plastic bag on the table. “Christ. Luckily, you have me!”
To eat…? Sooyoung thinks foggily, watching Jinsol from the side. Unfortunately, drunk Sooyoung can diverge into either sleepy or horny Sooyoung, and she can feel herself straying into the latter as she observes the other girl. Jinsol’s dressed casually in loose jeans and an oversized shirt, and the fact that Sooyoung has seen what’s underneath makes her head buzz, but what really might make her do something unwise is how Jinsol’s got her bottom lip between her teeth as she pulls a box of Chinese takeout from the plastic bag. Sooyoung would like to lean in and do that with her own teeth - wait, Chinese takeout?
Jinsol hands her the box, along with a pair of chopsticks. “Quick, before you collapse and die.”
“You are an angel,” Sooyoung says earnestly as she opens the box. “I owe you my life.”
“Keep going,” Jinsol grins, grabbing her own box of food.
You’re beautiful, and kind, and adorable, and I think I might be in serious trouble if you keep being so sweet and nice and sexy. Sooyoung would say all this out loud if her mouth wasn’t full, and if she had a fucking death wish. She’s drunk, not stupid. Besides, she likes Jinsol too much to ruin their friendship. But that’s another problem, isn’t it?
She likes Jinsol too much.
Sooyoung holds out her hand. “Sure, but I’ll need my booze back.”
Jinsol stares at her in disbelief then slaps her hand lightly. “No!”
Sooyoung yelps, jerking her hand away; it’s the one she’d sliced open the other day with the needle bit. Jinsol, horrified, immediately grabs her hand back, cradling it tenderly. “Shit, I’m so sorry!”
“It’s fine,” Sooyoung mumbles, embarrassed. She’d been more surprised than hurt, and Jinsol’s warm hands wrapped around her own are making her head throb. “I'm a sculptor, it happens all the time.”
“Maybe, but it was my fault,” Jinsol says.
“It really wasn’t,” Sooyoung protests.
“Whatever. Hold still,” Jinsol tells her, then lifts Sooyoung’s hand and presses her lips against her palm, just under the cut. It’s a slight pressure against her skin and doesn’t last longer than a second, but the feeling is already seared into her memory. She stares slack-jawed as Jinsol pulls away and pats the back of her hand. “There, all better now.”
Sooyoung collects herself quickly, putting on a grin that has too much wolf in it to be properly sheepish. “Hey, I think I banged my face when I was opening a cupboard earlier, could you take care of that too?”
Jinsol glances at her sharply, then pushes her away with a scandalized shriek when she sees Sooyoung’s expression. “Ha Sooyoung, I cannot stand you!”
“Plan succeeded,” Sooyoung says serenely, turning her attention back to her takeout. Jinsol may be an extremely pretty girl with the uncanny ability to keep her just a fraction off balance, but she’s content knowing that she can also get Jinsol flustered. It’s the little things.
Sooyoung puts down her chopsticks. “Jinsol, there’s something I wanna tell you.”
Jinsol looks at her expectantly.
Sooyoung takes a fortifying breath. “Heejin and I once designed a scam where she poses and doesn’t move and I sell her to an art gallery saying she’s an incredibly realistic sculpture and then she just leaves the art gallery in the middle of the night.”
“What the fuck,” Jinsol says.
-
When she’s not in class or passed out in her dorm, Sooyoung spends the next few weeks barricaded in the basement studio, chipping away at the ice. She hasn’t seen Jinsol this entire time, the other girl preoccupied with her own projects as the end of the semester approaches, and if Sooyoung mourns her absence a little, that’s no one’s business.
Fortunately, the sculpting process has been kind to her. Sooyoung carefully shapes the contours of the neck, and rounds the shoulders and breasts with the torch. She etches out the waves of hair that thread through icy fingers, using her memory of how it had felt in her own hands. The face she leaves for last, almost out of dread, but Jinsol’s sharp jaw and the slant of her cheekbones emerge from the ice so naturally that for once Sooyoung is pleased with her choice of material. Normally, she would use some kind of stone, but something about Jinsol had convinced her that ice was the perfect medium, and now she’s beyond relieved to see that she was right.
The studio techs have since been accustomed to Sooyoung’s odd working hours, even giving her 24-hour-access, so it’s almost six in the morning when Sooyoung finally puts down the pistol grip sander and sprays down the entire sculpture to reveal the ice’s texture and clarity. The entire thing is strikingly transparent except for the fins along the mermaid’s tail, which Sooyoung had carved separately from cloudy ice and attached piece by piece. The harsh fluorescent lighting in the room, paired with Sooyoung’s breath hanging in wreaths in the cold air as she paces around the sculpture, makes the piece seem as if it’s not just frozen, but suspended; as if the water was being held together in a transient, beautiful form before splashing onto the ground at any moment.
Sooyoung doubts that Jinsol is awake, but she takes a picture of the sculpture and sends it anyway, with the message: wahoo.
She’s hanging up her tools when her phone receives a reply. Jinsol’s sent her a blurry picture of herself on her dorm balcony, the sunrise behind her. Her eyes are squeezed shut from her huge smile, and she’s holding a thumbs up. Sooyoung’s heart lodges in her throat.
jinsol: WAHOO!!! wanna get breakfast together?
Sooyoung doesn’t bother suppressing an idiotic grin as she turns off the lights in the studio and grabs her bag.
-
The interior of the Music Performance department’s concert hall is dimly lit except for the stage, upon which a single floodlight is pointed in anticipation. Sooyoung slips into the back row just as Professor Bae enters the stage and starts rattling off introductory remarks.
“What are you doing?” Hyeju whispers loudly to her left.
Sooyoung feels a little offended at Hyeju’s surprise, although it’s true that Sooyoung’s never expressed interest in these events before, much less attended one. “There’s gonna be a concert, didn’t you hear?”
“Asshole,” Hyeju hisses, but makes room next to her anyway.
The program lasts for the entire evening, with an intermission; Sooyoung knows just enough about music to enjoy it. Most of the performances are solos, with some duets and one earth-shattering operatic number from a diminutive brunette that causes a standing ovation. Hyeju almost gets escorted out for doing an ear-splitting whistle after Yerim’s piano solo.
Finally, the lights dim for the last time, turning a soft shade of pale blue. The curtain closes, and when it opens again, Jinsol is sitting at the grand piano in the center of the stage, the lights glinting off of her hair. Hyeju’s poking at Sooyoung’s ribs, but Sooyoung is too preoccupied with staring at the girl on the stage as her hands settle on the keys and she begins to play.
This must be a hallucination, Sooyoung thinks as the music fills the concert hall. She feels strangely short of breath, and eventually Hyeju stops jabbing her, similarly entranced. The way Jinsol plays inexplicably reminds Sooyoung of how she sculpted the ice; aggressively and quickly at some parts, slowly and softly at others, but with the undertone of reverence throughout the entire piece. Sooyoung closes her eyes and, with every note Jinsol plays, she can almost hear the crystals of ice splintering in an iridescent spray.
The performance feels as if it lasts either for an eternity or the span of a heartbeat, Sooyoung can’t tell. She feels a heavy sweetness forming near her heart, a feeling she has no name for. When Jinsol hits the final chord, the resulting applause is almost as loud as the thundering in her chest.
“I think everyone just fell in love,” Hyeju says directly into her ear.
“Tell them to get in line,” Sooyoung replies, standing up to leave.
In an ideal situation, she would stay and wait for Jinsol, finding her after the crowd has left. She’d tell her, I like you so much I can’t stand it. But that’s not going to happen, because Jinsol doesn’t know she’s here, and besides, she probably doesn’t even like her back like that. At best, Sooyoung would come across as a fucking creep.
She makes her way back into her studio in the art building - not the freezer room downstairs, but the one by the loading dock - and settles into one of the chairs contentedly. She’s doodling a diagram of the buildings outside the window when the door bangs open, and Jinsol yells, “Ha Sooyoung!”
Shit. Sooyoung drops her pencil, genuinely terrified. How the fuck did Jinsol find her? It must have been that insidious troublemaker Hyeju. Jinsol zeroes in on the sound and makes a beeline straight for her with a petrifying expression. She must have come straight from the concert, wearing a black dress with lace at her throat, and despite the fast approaching threat Sooyoung can’t move or look away.
“Ha Sooyoung,” Jinsol says again, coming to a stop in front of her. The dark-haired girl’s gaze passes through Sooyoung like electricity. “You are unbelievable.”
Sooyoung is about to launch her defense case, but Jinsol plows on. “I had to find out from Hyeju that you attended the charity concert - you actually attended the charity concert - and that you didn’t stay to see me afterwards!”
“I made you flowers,” Sooyoung points out timidly.
Jinsol grabs her by the front of her shirt. “You also made me flowers!”
Those flowers, her secret side project, had almost made Sooyoung late, in fact. She’d worked on them in tandem with the sculpture, carving needle-stemmed roses with fluted leaves and paper-thin petals from olive wood whenever she needed a break. She’d arranged a dozen of them in the foyer of the concert hall just before the performances, Professor Bae passing by with a knowing smile.
“Why, Sooyoung?” Jinsol leans down towards her. “Tell me.”
Sooyoung looks up at her and says the only thing currently in her brain. “I like you so much I can’t stand it.”
Jinsol’s grip tightens just a fraction on Sooyoung’s shirt. Her expression is indecipherable. Sooyoung is mentally calculating how fast she’d have to move to rip herself from Jinsol’s grasp and fling herself headfirst out of the nearest window when Jinsol deposits herself firmly into Sooyoung’s lap, lifts her chin with her hand, and kisses her.
Sooyoung doesn’t realize how tense she’s been, so as soon as Jinsol’s lips touch hers, her entire body immediately uncoils with relief and her hands come up to hold Jinsol’s waist, pulling her closer. Jinsol shifts in her lap, her hair tickling Sooyoung’s face as she adjusts the angle so their mouths fit together better. Sooyoung curls her fingertips into the fabric of Jinsol’s dress, feeling Jinsol gasp into her mouth; the other girl’s grip around her jaw tightens, her thumb resting on Sooyoung’s chin just under her bottom lip. The slight pressure drives Sooyoung out of her mind. Lightning could have struck inside the room and it would not faze her.
Jinsol pulls away slightly to catch her breath. She leans her forehead against Sooyoung’s and says, “God, I've wanted to do that for a while.”
Sooyoung feels as if her insides are turning to lava. “How embarrassing.”
Jinsol shoves her shoulder, and Sooyoung holds her steady, settling her hands at the tops of her thighs, and reaches up to kiss her again. When they break apart for air, Sooyoung plucks at the lace on Jinsol’s neckline and says, “This is so fucking sexy.”
Jinsol gives a little disbelieving laugh. “Sooyoung, you’ve seen me without my clothes.”
Sooyoung noses at the underside of her jaw, placing a kiss there. Jinsol’s hair smells faintly like jasmine. “Have I? Don’t seem to recall. Maybe I need to refresh my memory.”
It was meant to be a tease, and Sooyoung expects another shove to her shoulder, but Jinsol’s eyes darken and suddenly Sooyoung’s lungs stop working. Jinsol takes her hands from around her waist and places them on the back of her neck, where her zipper is. “Unzip me, then.”
Who is Sooyoung to refuse?
Jinsol stays in her lap as Sooyoung pulls the zipper down and the dress along with it, so she has to stop at her waist, but that’s more than enough to make Sooyoung feel lightheaded. Of course, she’s seen this before, but for all their sessions Jinsol had been wearing a plain sports bra; now, Sooyoung runs her hands tortuously slowly up Jinsol’s sides and over the straps of a little lacy dark blue piece, slipping her fingertips just under it. Golden light streams in from the street lamps outside and pools in the hollow of Jinsol’s throat. Sooyoung measures the plane of her collarbone with her thumb; it’s a reflex by now, and one doesn’t apologize for breathing.
“Remember now?” Jinsol breathes in her ear.
Sooyoung shivers. “Yeah, so, I was lying.” She leans in to press her lips under Jinsol’s collarbone; the other girl’s fingers dig into her shoulder blades in response. “I remember perfectly.”
She fends off Jinsol’s smack, laughing, then lifts her up to sit her on the table, pushing the other girl’s legs apart with her hips to stand between them. Jinsol’s breathing quickens and Sooyoung malfunctions at the sight of her.
“You’re so beautiful,” Sooyoung manages to say.
“Don’t just stare,” Jinsol huffs, grabbing the front of her shirt again to pull her in.
-
The gallery space is wide-open and warmly lit, so Sooyoung can survey the entire room from where she’s standing. The graduating seniors’ pieces are scattered strategically around the area, creating a kind of maze. From here, she can spot Heejin’s piece, a tasteful oil-on-canvas of Hyunjin staring dead-on like American Gothic, as well as an impressive driftwood arrangement that looks vaguely like a kneeling man, and a piece made from cold rolled steel that maybe would bear a passing resemblance to the human form if she was blind drunk. Her ice sculpture resides in one of the corners, backlit by a piercing blue light.
“You’ve really outdone yourself, Sooyoung,” Professor Kang says, coming to stand beside her with a soft, proud smile. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” Sooyoung says, surprised. Professor Kang is known for being notoriously stingy with praise despite being one of the nicer faculty members.
“However, I am curious about one thing,” the professor continues. “Is it sad for you to see this sculpture that you spent almost the entire semester working on just… melt away?”
Sooyoung shrugs. “Well, that’s partially why I chose ice, actually. Not only is it beautiful and unique, but it’s also liberating as it allows for me to focus on the process itself since I know it’ll melt away within hours of leaving the studio.”
“Well said,” Professor Kang agrees. “Personally, if I didn’t know beforehand about your struggle with portraying the human form, there’s no way I’d be able to tell from your execution of this piece. It’s exquisite.” She pats Sooyoung on the back, and Sooyoung smiles at her, feeling shy from the praise.
“Have you seen Heejin?” Sooyoung asks. “Ever since some of the visiting artists decided to start bidding on her piece I haven’t seen her.”
“She’s probably holding an auction as we speak,” Professor Kang says blithely. “Shouldn't you be wondering where Jinsol is?”
Sooyoung glances at the professor. She hadn’t told her that she and Jinsol were dating, but the older woman probably has her sources. Before Sooyoung can say anything, someone grabs her arm from behind.
“I’m right here,” Jinsol chirps, bumping her hip against Sooyoung’s. “Hi, Professor Kang. Sorry I’m late, I got lost.”
Professor Kang gestures towards the ice sculpture. “Have you seen it yet?”
“I have,” Jinsol replies, leaning her head on Sooyoung’s shoulder as they make their way over to it. “I’m very proud of her.”
“Of the sculpture, or Sooyoung?” Professor Kang asks, smiling as if she’s joking, but her eyes are keen.
The frozen mermaid stares at a point just above their heads as Jinsol tangles her fingers with Sooyoung’s. “Both, but I prefer the sculptor,” Jinsol says, Sooyoung pressing her cheek against the top of her head.
“Oh, you two are adorable,” Professor Kang coos. There’s a sudden swell of voices outside, and the professor whirls around. “What the - oh damn, I think we were right, Sooyoung. Heejin really is holding a whole auction outside.”
The professor rushes away, leaving Sooyoung and Jinsol standing alone.
“You’re proud of me?” Sooyoung repeats, poking Jinsol in the ribs.
“Don’t push it,” Jinsol says, batting her hands away with a poorly concealed grin. “Of course I am. You overcame one of your biggest obstacles.”
Sooyoung glances back over at the ice mermaid, sitting serenely on her pedestal. The backlight refracts through the ice into a shimmering skein of colors that shines onto the two of them. “Yeah, you have no idea how relieved I am. Imagine how fucking awkward it would be if it turned out not looking like you at all.”
“I never thought about that,” Jinsol says.
Sooyoung hums. “Oh, believe me, I did. You made me so nervous.”
“I thought that was because you had a huge crush on me,” Jinsol tells her, to which Sooyoung gently pinches her side, making her yelp.
“I mean, you kept bringing me food, what was I supposed to do, not fall for you?” Sooyoung teases, pressing a kiss against Jinsol’s temple to make up for it.
“If you get on my nerves, Ha Sooyoung, I will stop feeding you,” Jinsol threatens.
“You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” Sooyoung laughs.
Jinsol heaves a long-suffering sigh, but leans into Sooyoung anyway. “It’s like I’m hanging out with a middle schooler.”
Sooyoung grins, saying, “That’s not what it sounded like last night,” to which Jinsol makes a little scandalized noise and claps her hand over Sooyoung’s mouth. Sooyoung dodges her hand and pulls Jinsol in closer to ward off subsequent attacks, laughing noisily.
“Be quiet, you idiot,” Jinsol hisses, still trying to cover her mouth with her hand.
“Bet you can’t make me,” Sooyoung taunts, drunk with power.
Jinsol merely stretches up and kisses her deeply, one hand curled around the back of her neck. Sooyoung stiffens for a second, caught off guard, but then Jinsol’s tongue grazes against her bottom lip and she yields, tangling her hands in her hair. Sooyoung kisses her until she feels warm and boneless, either from lack of oxygen or something else, she doesn’t know.
Jinsol pokes her flaming cheek, smiling. “That’s what I thought.”
“You’re insufferable,” Sooyoung grumbles, grinning back like a fool.
From somewhere across the room, Hyeju crows in her high-pitched voice, “Homosexual activity in front of the ice sculpture! WHOOOO!”