Last call for passenger, Yeji Hwang, flight number J367 bound to Korea. The boarding gates are closing in 10 minutes.

It has been a year since she last visited home. She always felt conflicting emotions every time she had to travel back. It was either that heart wrenching feeling that squeezes her heart blue with anxiety and nostalgia or that unbearable excitement and peace knowing she gets to start over again, that she gets to relive what it was like to feel the way she used to before having her heart broken.

Two years have passed since she first left home, and a year since she got her heart torn to pieces. From that crying mess missing university every couple days just to hang out with friends, heck, maybe even just to bawl her eyes out at the dorms, to finally being able to crack a genuine smile and a blissful laugh.

It wasn't much for anyone, but Yeji could have sworn she almost died crying over someone she was tirelessly chasing for months. In fact, she swears he's the greatest love she'll ever experience. The greatest guy, the greatest love, the greatest everything.

At 18, she kinda believed she knew everything about love.

Yeji grew from that relationship. It wasn't typically a "long-term" relationship. It lasted for 8 months at most but chased the guy for another year. Her having her heart broken lasted longer than her being in love but again, she swears it was the greatest thing to happen to her.

She remembered the day she broke up with him—messy text messages and her ex showing up at her front door trying to win her back. The thing is Yeji was the one who fell out of love. Yeji was the one who initiated the break up. She was 16 when they met, 17 when they dated, and 18-ish when they broke up.

She knew she was too young, and having to apply for college just right around the corner, Yeji knew she needed no distractions. She cut him off like nothing, blocked him on all social media and shut the door right in his face when he visited. She treated him bad, bad but at that time, Yeji didn't even realize she was a conniving, selfish little .

She was too good for everyone and anyone.
 

Yeji was smart, articulate, astute, and a little too full of herself and that was the entire reason she blamed herself for their breakup. She was a but she wasn't heartless.

She remembers the day she realized maybe she shouldn't have broken up with him—texting her ex after three months, and realizing he has moved on. To make things worse (for Yeji), he forgave her.

The thing about conniving, selfish little es who are too full of themselves, like Yeji, is when they realize they did someone wrong and the person they hurt find the heart to forgive them for everything they didn't even say sorry for is a huge slap to their egos.

That was a big blow to Yeji's confidence when she realized she wasn't all that for her ex to move on so quickly. She started to realize that her ex didn't do her wrong at all.

He treated her right—he treated her the best, but she was too blinded to realize it was her who was wrong. So she spent months trying to win him back, texting him every day, and saying sorry every chance she gets.

After five months of doing the same thing over and over again, it began to dawn on her that she lost someone who genuinely loved her for who she was. Never mind the y attitude, he loved her for her.

He loved her even when she would suddenly disappear for days without contact. He loved her when she would throw curses at him during fights. He loved her even when she probably didn't feel the same. He loved her just because, and Yeji realized that she probably loved him. Probably.

Eight months into trying to win him back, and Yeji remembered what it was like to have her heart screaming in pain.

She knew she didn't love him the way he did and that's why it hurt. Again, she was a but she wasn't heartless. He didn't deserve the way she treated him and she knew that. Behind Yeji's petrifying persona is really just a softie who hated hurting people.

She hated the way she'd say things that are not supposed to come out of but effortlessly roll out of her tongue. She hates the way she hurts people unintentionally with the way she is. She hates the way she can't express herself truthfully and say nice things like other people do. She hates the way she pretends to love herself so much she had to be better than everyone and anyone.

Eight months into it and she finally knew she was wrong, wrong.

She hated it more.

She hated that she hurt him when all he wanted to do was love her. She hated that she didn't love him the way he loved her back. She hated that he forgave her and chose to see the good in all the bad that she is—that's when she realized. She was crying of guilt, and of having to say sorry for being the way that she is.

She couldn't even forgive herself so how could he forgive her?

"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry about everything. Tell me, is there really no going back anymore?" Yeji texted with water-filled tear ducts threatening to escape into full blown water streams.

"Yeji, love, I forgive you. You know that. Everything's okay now and maybe you should be okay with it too." Yeji read the reply, and maybe it was the way he called her "love" in the most endearing way or maybe it was the way he still tried to not hurt her even when he was rejecting her but it made Yeji cry more.

How could he still have so much love in his heart, Yeji thought.

The thing about break ups is that it's harder to move on when you are the one who does the leaving and not the one being left behind. It's easier to ask questions and blame the entire universe about why someone left you, but when you're the one making the decisions, all you are left with is your bad choices and yourself.

Yeji realized this. She couldn't even dare to be hurt because it was all her fault in the first place. So maybe she deserved it, the agonizing pain, the sleepless nights, the heart-sinking, stomach-churning feeling before your eyes water, the guilt, and the self-loathing.

Eleven months into it, and Yeji realized she needed it.

She needed the break up.

She needed the agonizing pain.

She needed to realize she really wasn't all that.

She needed everything to assess herself and put her feet back on the ground. She was the best in everything, but not at love. She learned that the hard way. She was feeling okay now. She accepted that certain things had to fall out for better things to fall into place. She was finally okay. No crying mess every few hours, days and even weeks.

After all that has happened, one thing Yeji realized is that she never wants to feel that way ever again.

Twelve months after the break up and she's finally coming home. Back to where she met and broke up with her ex.

---

It was a weird feeling, stepping foot on her homeland for the first time in a year.

She remembers crying ugly tears when her parents drove her to the airport. She was never away from them and that was the first time she'd ever have to be away for more than three days.

Yeji's face lit up when she got out of immigration gates and saw her mom waving at her with a smile on her face. She ran giddily and hugged her immediately, "I missed you so much!" Yeji exclaimed in between giggles.

"I missed you too, baby." Her mom retorted back, "Hurry up, Dad's waiting in the car. He was so excited for you to come home he drove us here three hours early because he didn't want you to wait." Her mom explained whilst dragging Yeji's second suitcase.

Yeji followed her into the parking lot and got situated inside the car,

"God, I missed our car so much. I missed the streets and especially the food! I had to live off ramen noodles for a month at one point." Yeji ranted.

"I got you your favorite food ready back home. Your mom kept insisting we go later than your arrival schedule. She didn't take into account we still had to feed you your favorites! And the stores close at 11 p.m, your flight's at 2:30 a.m! I had to do what I had to do." Her dad retorted back, looking at Yeji and her mom in between.

Yeji laughed at how excited her dad sounded when he was trying to mom.

She knew her mom was just as excited as he was. She knew this because when she finally arrived at home, she saw mountains of her favorite home cooked dishes all laid out on their dining table with her mom just dismissing it as, "There's food in kitchen if you want to eat."

Yeji smiled, and felt a tug on her heart.

She is finally home.

All the anxiety she felt on the plane was all gone now. She took a bite from her food and felt tears threaten to escape from her eyes. A year isn't a lot for everyone but for Yeji who loves her family with all her heart, it was depressing to be away from home.

She forgot how home cooked dishes tasted like, she forgot what laughters inside a room sounded like, and she forgot what it was like to be taken care of.

By this time, she was full blown crying while shoving food inside . It was a weird sight to see in anyone's point of view but Yeji's heart was so full she had to let the tears out.

After she had finally finished eating, and crying, she logged into her social media accounts and tweeted, "Touch down, Seoul!"

Weirdly enough, it always felt mandatory to tweet that you finally arrived at a certain destination, but Seoul wasn't just any destination she had to tweet.

She had to let her friends know that the baddest is back in town.

She didn't tell anyone she was coming home, not even her closest friends. She wanted to surprise them and Yeji, being a loudmouth, couldn't contain her excitement any longer and had to spoil it by tweeting a very cliche post.

Not long after, her friends started bombarding replies along the lines of, "Oh my god, you didn't even tell me?", "WHAT? You were in New Zealand just hours since we last talked!" and, ", you better show your face tomorrow or I'm dragging your out of your house first thing in the morning."

To say Yeji was amused by the replies she got was an understatement. She enjoyed, a little too much at that, the way her friends freaked out. She didn't reply though, she wanted to keep the mystery.

One thing that caught her eye was a certain person who liked her tweet. "Okay. Speak of the devil," Yeji thought.

In between the later months of her trying to move on from the heartbreak she was experiencing, she busied herself with movies, mountains of netflix series, and collecting crushes. Having cute little crushes over random strangers isn't going to hurt her, it was just something to distract and fuel her romance-deprived heart, and there was this one person that piqued her interest.

In fact, she actually knew who this person was.

Their community neighbourhood back home was close-knit that everyone basically knew everyone. The reason this person caught her attention was along the lines of her trying to get back together with her ex, him telling her it's over, and her ex actually having the audacity to say,

"You know what, you and Ryujin would go well together." Imagine the face Yeji had on when that was the reply she got. She was trying to get back together with her ex, not try to seduce his best friend.

A few months after that incident and Yeji got a notification that this "Ryujin Shin" started following her on twitter. It was weird because somehow, someway, Yeji felt like she has been waiting for it to happen. It was like a, "Took you long enough," at the back of her mind.

Weeks into her binge-watching addiction and Yeji started watching Game of Thrones. Her twitter timeline was basically just her spoiling everything for everyone, with "ing Joffrey, I'd wish you'd die already", "KHALEESI! I LOVE YOU" or "Valar Morghulis, Valar Dohaeris". Choose your pick, Yeji probably already ranted or fangirl-ed over it.

One thing that bothered her through this "GoT fiasco" she had going on was that a certain Ryujin Shin would constantly like her tweets. Sometimes just one, and sometimes it would seem like she had gone on a liking spree with all the notifications Yeji was receiving.

Yeji felt oddly weird about this. Well, she knew Ryujin was a huge fan of GoT but it still somehow made her feel, validated, appreciated… giddy? At least something, that Ryujin agreed with her rants–or so she assumes because Ryujin would never fail to like a tweet that was related to the series.

Yeji would also automatically like whatever Ryujin tweets, as long as it's within the bounds of their imaginary-GoT-twitter-friendship. It even came to point in where Yeji would tweet about GoT just so Ryujin would notice it.

It felt like achieving something, like receiving a star in kindergarten, or getting an A on an essay you copy-pasted online whenever Ryujin would reciprocate whatever this liking-your-tweet-as-long-as-its-GoT-related frenzy they had going on.

This went on for months until Yeji finally had to courage to reply to one of Ryujin's tweets,

"Episode five was so ing crazy. The way Khaleesi was on fire as the whole building burned to crisps was craaaaazy." Ryujin tweeted.

Yeji saw this as a perfect opportunity to test and put these crazy liking sprees into "maybe" sliding in the DMs, so Yeji replied with,

"I know right, that episode so ing lit!" With anxiety looming over her, and her probably re-reading the eight worded sentence a hundred times, she closed her eyes and blindly pressed the reply button.

To say Yeji was nervous was an understatement, she was practically dying and was counting seconds before her death. She didn't know how Ryujin would react, heck, she didn't even know why she was so nervous. They both knew each other because they were in the same neighbourhood.

Also, she was her best friend's ex so there's also that, but maybe the months of Ryujin constantly popping in her notifications made Yeji a little delusional that they had a little something going on.

Yeji didn't like her in that way, not even the slightest crush but somehow, every time she'd see Ryujin's username in her notifications, it would make her feel something she can't explain. So, minutes after sending the reply, and Yeji practically hyperventilating, she heard the oh-so-familiar "ting" which would signal that Ryujin must have replied or something.

Yeji quickly retracted her phone from her side table, and shakingly clicked on the notifications bar.

Ryujin liked your reply

Yeji waited a couple more minutes, and more.. and more. She pulled down on her thumb and refreshed the timeline.

Ryujin liked your reply

"That's it? That's ing it?" Yeji shouted in disbelief. She was actually a little bit annoyed, and mad, and embarrassed, and annoyed again. She couldn't believe that this Ryujin Shin can't even bother typing a reply.

An, "Agreed." would suffice, at least something. Maybe even a single dot would be okay, but just another like?

Another. ing. Like. That's it. Yeji thought.

Nope. This Ryujin Shin can't even, for the love of God, type something in response when they obviously had to be "friends" or at least "GoT friends" over the past months of reciprocating each other's tweet likes.

That's when Yeji's peculiar interest in Ryujin Shin ended. Yeji Hwang never reaches out to anyone, and her ex was an exception. Yeji didn't particularly have any ill feelings towards Ryujin but she probably has a huge red X on her face whenever Yeji thought of her. She wasn't hurt, but she was surely shocked.

If she didn't want to be friends, fine. The Yeji Hwang isn't going to like, reply, or glance at your tweets.

So when Ryujin suddenly popped in her notifications after her tweeting that she finally arrived in Seoul, Yeji felt weird for the nth time.

First, this wasn't GoT related at all.

Second, they are literally just a few kilometers away.

Third, if Yeji were to show her face tomorrow at the homecoming, Ryujin would definitely be there.

Fourth, "How dare she like my tweet again." Yeji thought.

Yeji soon dismissed this feeling, but it was gnawing at her at the back of her mind. She practically had no choice but to go to tomorrow's homecoming.

---

First thing Yeji did in the morning was contemplate whether meeting her friends was worth sacrificing her sleep for. She didn't get much and the jet lag from an almost 13-hour flight from New Zealand to Seoul wasn't helping at all. She got up, got her shower essentials and proceeded to take a bath.

Second thing Yeji did in the morning was contemplate whether meeting her friends was worth dying of hypothermia for. The heater just broke down, and it's either death or showing up after a year looking like and smelling like . The way Yeji seriously contemplated about this was worrying to say the least.

Yeji hustled through showering, and readying herself because she forgot to turn the air conditioner off before going to the bathroom, and now her dying of hypothermia isn't much to be contemplating about. It's soon reality, and she might never see her friends after this.

She quickly grabbed a quick brunch. She woke up late, almost froze to death, and she wasn't going to starve to death either. Yeji walked to homecoming as the venue was just a few kilometers away from her house.

With her airpods on full blast, she was by the entrance in no time. She saw a familiar face and asked for directions quickly,

"Hi! Do you know where Yuna and the others are?" The guy gave her a brief answer. Yeji speed walked to the venue, she started feeling excited, giddy and euphoric.

She hasn't seen them in a year. She knows she brushed it off last night but the thought of seeing her friends actually now a reality, and just a few steps away from physically being with them, Yeji had her smile plastered all over her face. With her chubby cheeks slightly tinted rosy pink, and a single hair clip keeping one side of her face "hair-free", Yeji could pass off as Kirby.

Yeji was by the door of a separate room Yuna and their squad stayed at. They were waiting for Yeji before proceeding to the venue. She was nervous, excited, and her hands were trembling from glee.

Yeji took a deep breath and knocked before opening the door.

As soon as she opened the door, her eyes were quickly caught by a very familiar face and an unfamiliar set of eyes. As cliche as this sounds, time did seem to slow down for Yeji. She stared at her face, and she stared back at hers too.

It felt like they were in the same situation they were originally in except they were basically face-to-face now and were reciprocating stares instead of tweet likes.

She knew her and yet, she also didn't. She was familiar, but at the same time, she wasn't. Yeji lost track of time for a moment. She forgot where they were, what she was doing, and why she was here in the first place.

She was looking at Ryujin Shin.

She could have sworn the girl she was looking at was saying something. She didn't open , but somehow she heard it. The moment felt like a minute when it was barely a second. Ryujin was the first person to look away. With Yuna tackling Yeji into a hug, she was left in a daze.

She heard the way Ryujin didn't even speak, but her heart telling her, "You're gonna have it bad."

It tugged the strings on her heart.

It's weird because Yeji didn't believe in love at first sight, and she still didn't believe in love at first sight, but maybe it was the way she made her feel something whenever she liked her tweets, maybe it was the way she always looked forward to Ryujin in her notifications, maybe it was the moment her ex mentioned her and Ryujin going well together, or maybe, just maybe, it was the way they looked at each other for a second too long but Yeji knew.

Yeji knew if she could have her heart broken again, she'd rather have it breaking for her.























 

hi guys! tell me your thoughts hehe. might update again if this receives some feedback hehe thank u 🥺 this is also in wattpad under the same title and author just in case some of u prefer reading on that app ;)