Chapter Text
Yeseo’s brown hair flows prettily in the wind in front of her and Bahiyyih pedals a little harder to catch up with her, which the younger girl takes as invitation to drive even faster. The sun is still beaming down on them, warming their skin and filling them with a seemingly never-ending sense of vitality—of freedom.
Summer break begins in three days, the teachers mostly put in movies or incorporate games into their classes, asking them about their plans for the holidays, some kids happily sharing their upcoming trips to Italy or Hawaii, some of them just spending their summers at their grandparents’ luxurious lake houses or the country clubs Bahiyyih would never see from the inside.
Don’t get her wrong, she isn’t jealous in the slightest—she’ll be perfectly content getting up early to head to the pool, staying there until late and then driving back home, only occasionally meeting with her mother and Kai (and maybe Lea, if she visits, which is kind of a rare occurrence these days) for dinner, though their family tends to each keep to themselves mostly, making their own food, never bothering to ask if anyone else wanted anything because if they did, they could get it themselves.
Bahiyyih wonders sometimes if that means they’re not a real family—she continues looking at Yeseo’s back, twisting from left to right to left to right. Her family is exactly that—a real family. Yeseo has four siblings, her the one smack in the middle of them. She tends to fade into the background, often a silent spectator not unlike Bahiyyih, though she says it’s because she’s the middle child and Bahiyyih isn’t, she’s the youngest and she doesn’t know if that means there’s something wrong with her or if the wallflower schtick is more a nature than a nurture thing. Perhaps both.
They descend their bikes and Bahiyyih wrecks her mind for something to say or ask—their relationship is different from hers to both Youngeun and Jungwon, the latter seeming to have deepened just from their conversation yesterday.
“So…what about Niki?” she asks, hoping it’ll make Yeseo happy and it visibly does; the younger girl sucks in a sharp gasp and she makes a gesture as if to squeeze Bahiyyih’s arm but doesn’t, only wiggles her fingers in the air between them.
“We talk, like, every day,” says Yeseo, pinching her eyes shut for a second, as if to contain her happiness but failing for the most part, the palpable excitement just fizzing out of her.
Youngeun sometimes says Yeseo’s too-something and Bahiyyih wishes she’d have the guts to outwardly disagree with her more often, rather than just thinking her part. It’s important to stand in for the people she cares about—she just sometimes forgets to. Friendships are so hard.
“That’s nice,” she says for lack of a better reply. Yeseo seems relatively pleased just walking in silence, her swimming bag hitting her thigh while Bahiyyih’s is just the exact replica of her school backpack, but the older girl is dissatisfied with conversation, if you could even call it that.
She wants to be better—needs to be better, a friend you would want to confide it.
For a brief second she wonders if she only desperately wants to tell everybody about her recent discovery, her new gaining of conscience, even, but before she can chastise herself for being egotistical, Yeseo asks her if she wants to read her and riki nishimura♡’s text conversations, the question essentially bursting out of her, and she finds she does, so she nods and giggles a bit, like the giddy school girl she should let herself be more often, and that’s that.
Yeseo’s long done changing into her bathing suit, occupied with stuffing her hair under a swim cap, when Bahiyyih’s finally done reading through all the texts, heart beating with possibility.
“And? What do we think?” Yeseo grins at her, cheeks as pink as Bahiyyih thinks hers must be.
She’s at a loss for words truly. She’s so…happy. For her friend? For herself, in some twisted, self-absorbed way? The exchange of compliments, be it regarding Niki’s countless sketches of Yeseo, her eyes, her hands, her face, little hearts on her cheeks and nose, to Yeseo sending him bits and pieces of poems she seems to have written—Bahiyyih didn’t even know her friend was this talented!
“I think you’re an amazing writer and I need more immediately,” she speaks, truthfully. Yeseo pales and her smile turns wary. Was that the wrong thing to say? Bahiyyih feels unsure and she hurriedly returns the phone to her friend, who quickly, without granting it another glance, drops it into her opened bag.
“You meant about him, I know, um. Sorry?” She hates how she sounds kind of mean sometimes, hates how she’s a terribly unobservant friend, hates how she guesses and guesses what people expect—or want, she supposes—from her, how she never gets anything right and—
“Thank you, Hiyyih,” Yeseo interrupts her rather destructive train of thought. “Genuinely. I—I have issues expressing thanks verbally, which is why I like texting so much. Maybe I’ll text you later.” She shrugs.
Bahiyyih doesn’t know if she meant for it to sounds like a question but she waits for the younger to continue.
“It’s like—nobody knows I write and it’s my own fault because I don’t tell anyone anymore but it still feels—I don’t know. I don’t even know why I told him in the first place, I think he saw me scribbling in my notebook during class, whatever, and I know he doesn’t get some of the things I write about—no, that’s unfair, he—he might get them, I’m not sure. But he’s so nice to me, Hiyyih, and it’s also not fair of me to compare him to you, because you’re, like, the nicest person I know, but you’re sometimes not that honest and really in your head and that’s completely fine, I’m rambling because you’re not stopping me and what I mean is he’s nice to me and gives me the attention I need and it doesn’t hurt that he’s super cute and draws me, okay? Now put on your bathing suit, I don’t wanna talk about this anymore.”
And so she’s off, goggles dangling from her wrist.
Bahiyyih is stunned but not hurt, Yeseo was right about what she said about her and while it scares her that someone sees her—everything she tries to hide and uses as defense mechanisms, maybe, to keep Youngeun or her mother peaceful, as not to be a bother or, worse, a burden—she also feels a strange lightness.
She respects Yeseo’s wishes not to talk about it further and she, quite honestly, prefers not having conversations she can’t—is control the right word? She’s unsure—foresee, in a way.
Swimming is exhilarating; the water is cold though not freezing, curtesy to the mellow evening sun and Bahiyyih couldn’t be more relaxed.
Her training routine is a simple one because there’s nothing worse than feeling sore and stuck in her own body, unable to move certain ways and souring her mood unnecessarily. She swims 50m in a comfortable breaststroke, 50m on her back, spending her short breaks in between watching Yeseo, her amazing techniques, not one ounce of stiffness in sight.
While Bahiyyih’s knowledge of most things, including her swimming abilities, comes from hours and hours of diligent training, never anything otherworldly but always steady and disciplined, Yeseo’s just more or less naturally gifted.
It’s not something Bahiyyih ever bothered being jealous of: she doesn’t see the need to get upset over things she has no power changing—some people are born with it, some have to work a little bit harder. No big deal.
Her head feels heavy all of a sudden and she lowers herself deep into the coolness of the water. Her swim cap is too tight—she pulls it off, cursing herself in the same figurative breath. Chloride dries out her hair, making it frizzy and dull-looking. Whatever. She’ll do a treatment tonight anyway.
The water numbs down every sensation, like wearing a hazmat suit, protecting her not only against the outside but also calming down her inner world, her thoughts finally subsiding, every emotion suddenly becoming superficial and melodramatic down here.
She doesn’t realize her lungs become too tight until they do—she pushes the soles of her feet into the floor of the pool, kicking herself upwards in one swift movement. She hates how the noise comes back at once, the splashing of the water, hitting the sides of the pool, the breathing of the few people around her swimming, the scream of a flock of birds. What’s the correct term for a group of birds? Bahiyyih thinks there must be multiple. She’ll have to look it up at home.
She does another 50m of breaststrokes to tire herself. It works only slightly, but she’s alright.
Later, when she’s already in bed with her hair twisted into two loose braids, still wet from the shower she took, she receives a text from Yeseo, wishing her a good night and sincerely thanking her again for their talk. Bahiyyih doesn’t answer because she doesn’t know how to—she feels weird and her body doesn’t feel right.
She wills herself to fall asleep but ends up lying awake for another half hour at least. She’s not sure.
“Hikaru,” she whispers to herself, because she feels like if she doesn’t say it, the name won’t leave her brain at all. It’s like it’s breaking out of her, making her mouth feel weird and wrong if she doesn’t let it out. “HikaruHikaruHikaru,” she whisper-yells into her pillow and immediately feels lighter.
The feeling in her chest stays and her heart is racing. This is supposed to feel good, she thinks. Whatever it is—if this is how it is for everyone, she doesn’t understand why people enjoy suffering like this, just for the sake of suffering. For building up hope for something, for taking a chance. How frustratingly foolish. How—Bahiyyih’s phone screen lights up, indicating a new message.
we need to talk. It’s Youngeun, her icon a picture of her latest celebrity crush. tmr after school?
Furiously, Bahiyyih shakes her head. The feeling rises to the top, threatening to burst. What is happening? Why does it feel like something is changing? She doesn’t want anything to change.
She listens: the house creaking because the wood cools off at night. The electrical current buzzing. Feet shuffling in the hallway, her mother going to bed. Maybe Kai? No, he isn’t home yet. Why isn’t he home? How could he be so irresponsible? He’s the middle child! Her blanket dropping on the floor. Her feet hitting the carpet, then her knees, her hands. This isn’t normal—this isn’t right.
Her skin is on fire. She needs to sleep but it’s like that time Lea let her drink some of her energy drink. The room is spinning. She pinches the skin of her thigh, and for a moment it clears her mind completely. She does it again and again until it hurts so bad she feels nauseated.
Okay. This is okay. It’s not but it will be. She itches to call her father but she knows she can’t. Not now, not ever.
“Hikaru,” she whispers again, unable to push anything else past her lips. “HikaruHikaruHikaru.”