she broke your throne

Jia meets her when they’re both young, though not quite aware. They’re not quite aware of their age, or each other. Jia watches across the playground as Min goes back and forth on the metal, chains creaking to the rhythm of her swing.

“Jia! Come on!” calls the boy on the soccer field, and the other boys yell to her to hurry up too.

She runs over and plays with them, but she can’t seem to get the sight of Min rocking back and forth out of her Mind.

–

Jia remembers the first time she talks to her. It’s when they have to find a partner of the same gender for an assignment in school, and the boys tease her because they can all stay with each other and she has to find someone else.

Her eyes and mind go to Min immediately, and she catches sight of the short-haired girl across the classroom. Min is sitting at her desk, tracing lines on a piece of paper, and Jia doesn’t manage to suppress the urge to go over at the sight of her.

“Hi,” she says, and once Min meets her eyes with her own, Jia suddenly feels shy, for the first time. “Do you want to be partners with me?”

Min seems stunned, but her eyes say nothing as she replies. “Sorry,” she says to Jia. “I’m already partners with Suzy.” And then she indicates the long-haired girl sitting behind her.

Jia eyes her with envy but leaves, and ends up getting partnered with the only other Chinese girl in the class. Still, her eyes wander over across the class, where Min is, not knowing of her presence.

–

She’s with the boys again, and she’s into her game of football when her eyes suddenly catch sight of something on the playground.

Min is sitting at the top bar of a jungle gym, with long, slim legs dangling from the side most bars. Her dark eyes are cast down as her black hair frames her face, outlining every feature on her pale face.

Jia stares for perhaps a second too long, and stumbles on the grassy field. She lands face first in the ground, tumbling and crashing and getting a mouthful of dirt. But she’s not quite aware with it, because she can still see her, and she doesn’t seem to be moving any time soon.

“Jia!” shouts out a loud voice from down the field, and Jia jerks her head up to see that the group of boys is running towards her to see if she’s all right. One boy comes over and helps her up, but she’s much too focused on the girl in the playground.

“Jia, are you okay?” they ask. “You seem kind out of it.”

“I’m fine,” is her response, and even when she returns to her game, her Mind isn’t in it at all.

–

Min isn’t like the boys, she realizes. She isn’t like the girls, either. Min is someone by herself–Min, with her quiet beauty, with her concealed confidence, with her paper thin frame.

Jia finds herself being intrigued by her, and she doesn’t regret it at all.

Min doesn’t have many friends too, though it takes a while for Jia to realize this. But Min doesn’t take glory or pride in this; she keeps her head down, bowed with modesty. And Jia finds this sexy.

–

When she turns twelve, the boys notice that Jia’s starting to become more of a girl. When she turns thirteen, they laugh at her and stick their tongues out at her and thus proceed to abandon her. And Jia finds herself being alone, and she doesn’t know how to feel about this.

She looks at herself in the mirror one day, naked. Her fingers trace the outline of her breasts, and she notices that she
is
becoming a girl. She doesn’t know if she likes this, or hates it. She finds it intriguing. She likes being a girl.

She touches herself for the first time that night, and decides that,
yes, perhaps there’s something thrilling about being a girl. 

Three hours later, she can’t go to sleep, and doesn’t miss those boys at all. It’s rather sad that they had chosen to leave her. They had chosen to abandon her. Jia tries to force herself to cry, but she can’t do even that.

Instead, her mind ends up drifting to Min, and she falls into her slumber.

–

Jia watches as the boys she used to hang out with are talking and laughing on the other side of the classroom, and perhaps envies them a little bit. But it goes away when she’s enraptured by her own fingers on her desk, and plays with them instead. She’s always found fragile, delicate things fascinating, because she believes that they are stronger than anything else in the world.

She doesn’t pay too much attention to anything else in the world as her fingers rift back and forth on her desk, though she’s still well aware of how she’s not with those boys, because she’s not a boy. But this all goes away when she hears someone speak her name, in a quiet, whole voice,

“Jia?”

Her head shoots up and her eyes meet with the bright black eyes of a short-haired girl, the girl who had forever been drifting around in her Mind.

–

She deems Min her friend three days after being with her, and tries not to take too much pride in the fact that Min doesn’t hang around anyone else. But then, Jia realizes, Min had never hung around anyone else, so she’s probably the first.

For some reason, this makes her erratically happy.

At their fourth lunch together, Min talks to her more than she’s ever talked to her before. “What do you like about people?” she asks her, like there’s something special about the way their legs are touching and neither of them is moving to break them apart.

“I,” Jia starts, but then realizes she has nothing to say. She doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t even know if she likes people. She’s been around them her whole life, before, before Min. But now Min is here in front of her, staring at her with those dark eyes of hers, capturing, drawing her into them. “I don’t know.”

Min lets out a little hum, which sounds rather content, rather thoughtful. Jia watches her, observing every move that she makes. “Why?” she inquires.

Min just quirks her lips up a little bit and her gaze fall onto the space below Jia’s eyes. “I don’t like people,” she tells her.

–

“But I like you,” she tells her later, when they’re walking home from school together.

Jia wonders what separates her from people.

–

They enter high school and jeer at all the boys and their drugs, and giggle at all the girls with their perfume and short skirts. Jia catches Min eyeing a girl’s backside on the second day of their first year, and wonders how brave Min must be in her Mind.

“I want to break,” Min says. “I want to drink. I want to party. I want to do something stupid. I want to get myself into loads of trouble and not give a damn.”

It’s the first time Jia’s heard the other girl curse, and she thinks it’s the most beautiful thing in the world. “Why?” she asks her, because she can’t help but be intrigued by Min’s word.

“Live life with no regrets,” Min tells her, eyes shining. And then she leans over on the lunch table and whispers against Jia’s lips, “I want to fuck like there’s no tomorrow.”

–

She doesn’t, of course. Min smiles at all the teachers and answers all the questions right, and Jia watches as Min is so perfect when she’s so imperfect on the inside. And this, Jia realizes, is what makes Min more perfect than anything else.

A boy asks Jia out in the fall, when she’s in class and Min’s not around. Jia’s not quite sure what to say, so she says yes. Later, in art class, she tells Min this.

“And you said yes?” Min asks her, wide-eyed. And when Jia nods her head, her eyes go even wider.

“You shouldn’t have,” she tells Jia very seriously. “You shouldn’t. It wasn’t smart, you know. You’re not supposed to say yes to boys.” The light in her black eyes are convincing.

“… Why?” Jia can’t help asking, because it’s like Min knows everything and she doesn’t know anything. But that’s how it’s always been, hasn’t it?

“You can never trust boys.”

Min nods and takes Jia’s chin underneath her finger, and Jia wants to breathe in her scent forever.

–

Later that day, Jia catches up with the boy in the hallways and tells him no, she can’t go out with him. When he asks her why, she tells him she has other things to tend to, and leaves before he can leave another question.

–

“I like mirrors,” Min tells Jia, as they wander around the abandoned dance room. They’re not supposed to be here, Jia know, but Min is so good at being convincing so she doesn’t care, as she swallows back her words.

“They’re so pretty.” Min brings her face close to the mirror in front of her, and her reflection is almost touching. Her short black hair falls in front of her, stroking against the bridge of her nose. “Because they show you everything you aren’t.”

Jia watches as Min dances along with her, embracing the melody of the silence. They’re here, together, and nothing but the brokenness they share is important right now.

“They just show you who you are on the outside,” Min says, turning back around and watching as Jia’s body flows along the dance floor, limbs hanging loosely in the air. She comes around and brings her hands to the side of her body, palms lightly stroking against her. Her fingers fly over her breasts for the briefest of seconds.

“And never who you are on the outside.”

Jia feels the other girl’s warm breath on the back of her neck, and allows these words to fall down every piece of her body.

–

Min fiddles with the chopsticks in her fingers, as Jia quietly tells her mother to leave the room. Her mother sends her a disgusted look, but Jia doesn’t care; this is her time with Min, and Min is
hers
, alone.

“Why’d you do that?” Min asks her, boldly, and Jia realizes that this is the first time that the roles are reverse. Or at least, she’s aware of it–but she doesn’t care, because Min’s eyes pierce her like daggers.

She shrugs and fishes around for answer. “I wanted to,” is her simple answer, and Min decides this is good enough when she laughs.

It sounds strange, Jia thinks. But it’s nice. It ripples like water, quiet then loud, flowing like the brightest of blues.

“Am I rubbing off on you, Jia?” she asks with a chuckle. “Am I too much trouble for you, that you have to act like a bitch to your mom?”

“You’re not any trouble, Min,” Jia tells her, because she means it.

Min laughs again, and Jia can find something tragic in it. But she ignores it anyways.

–

In their third year of high school, Min tells Jia that she doesn’t like boys. Jia doesn’t know how to respond.

In their third year of high school, Jia touches herself for the first time in ages, and remembers how much she likes it.

“I just don’t like them, you know?” Min says as she looks to Jia, and there’s something bright in her eyes, like the bright end of a cigarette. “Boys are gross. Boys are icky.” She cackles and Jia thinks it’s beautiful.

“I know,” Jia tells her, genuine, sincere. She picks at herself as if she wants to say something more, but she doesn’t say anything.

Min cocks her head to the side and observes her friend, her only friend (and it’s mutual, Jia realizes.) “There’s something on your mind, Jia. I know there is,” she tells her. She brings her sharp fingernails along the table and looks into Jia’s eyes, glinting with everything she’s ever known. “What is it? Spill.”

“Nothing,” Jia replies, shaking her head with everything.

–

At night, she touches herself again and imagines Min’s eyes with her, around her. She spills into her palm and doesn’t regret it at all

–

Her mother yells at her,
you’ve changed, you’ve changed so much, your grades are failing and you look like you’re doing drugs, you should stop hanging out with that Min girl.
Jia curses her out and locks herself in her room, and when she can’t take it anymore, she runs away like the little girl she’s never been.

“You can crash at my place,” are the first words that Min says to her when she opens up the door to see Jia on her front porch. She invites Jia in and tells her to make herself at home, and so Jia does. Jia’s only ever felt at home with her.

Min offers her a drink, and so Jia says yes. Min comes into the living room with a bottle of soju, and laughs when Jia eyes it warily. “Oh, come on,” she tells her. “It won’t hurt you. Besides, my parents aren’t home,” she adds, lowering her voice.

Jia wonders why she’d lowered her voice if no one is home, but doesn’t question it. And when she sees Min pop open a bottle of her own and spill the liquid into her mouth, she decides that she wants to be that pretty too. So she opens up her own bottle and pours the first few drips of the alcohol on her tongue.

The taste runs down her throat like a fire, and Jia feels like she’s being burned down. She coughs and hacks a little bit. Min comes over and pats her on the back.

“Can’t handle it yet, can you?” Min says, releasing a chuckle at the corner of her mouth. “Don’t worry. After a while, you’ll get used to it.”

Jia admires the way the glass shines in Min’s eyes.

–

When her parents get home, Jia sees who Min truly is not.

Min smiles at her mother and hugs her father. The soju bottles are hidden at the bottom of her bed. She whispers into her father’s ear, breath lingering with the scent of peppermints, Jia figures. And her mother smiles at her appreciatively, and then turns to Jia and asks, isn’t Min such a nice friend, Jia?

Jia manages to nod, and watches as Min remains to be perfect. It’s all she’s ever been, anyways.

–

Min kisses her for the first time on the second week of their last year. She cups Jia’s face in her palm and looks into her, dark orbs curved with light. Her pursed pink lips fold onto her teeth.

“I hate this,” she says, telling her a secret.

Jia holds her breath and stares at Min, waiting for anything else.

“I hate this,” Min tells her again, before diving in to kiss her again.

It takes all of Jia to not kiss her back. But she does so, anyways.

–

It’s different, so different when Jia’s with Min now–but it’s a good kind of different, she figures, as Min’s hands wander all over her while they rest in the secluded corner that no one bothers looking in.

“What are we?” Jia asks Min, her mouth pressed to the side of her hair. She feels like she’s slightly wasted, slightly stoned, just from being so close to Min–and she wants to take this and draw it into her nearer, closer to everything she has.

Min just smiles a smile that doesn’t seem real, maybe because nothing about her has ever been real.

“We’re nothing,” she whispers to her, eyes moving closer to hers, whites contrasted against blacks. “We’re nothing, Jia, don’t you see? We don’t exist.”

Her words fall onto Jia’s neck and Jia basks in them. She closes her eyes and wonders if Min’s still with her. But when she opens her eyes again, Min’s light body is still pressed against hers, ever so existing.

–

Jia feels like she knows all of Min’s body as they dive between the sheets, and she gasps slightly as the Min’s teeth rake against her collarbone. Her hands find the back of Min’s shirt, and her fingers are suddenly running up and down her skin, releasing pants from the other girl.

“There’s something so wrong with us,” Min says throatily. She moans when Jia’s strange fingers grip on her breasts, awed by the gorgeousness of her body.

“We’re so fucked up,” Jia agrees, and Min laughs while her mouth moves over to Jia’s again.

–

They have sex every other day, and Jia realizes that she wants this. She’s always wanted this. She’s wanted this since the beginning, and she finally has it. She’s won.

She tells Min this, and Min just smiles at her because she doesn’t understand. But Min’s always smiled at her; it’s all she’s ever done.

“You’re mine, baby,” she tells her, stroking the top of Jia’s head. “Mine.” And she presses her mouth to Jia’s side, and Jia squirms and leans her head on her collarbone.

“Will I, will I be yours forever?” Jia murmurs, though not loud enough for Min to hear her. She pretends that Min has answered, “Yes,” to her, and this makes her heart content.

When they fuck that night, Jia allows Min to touch every part of her, and orgasms in her hand like she’s never done before. And when they pull back to gasp, she knows that she can come just at the sound of Min’s breathing.

–

After the winter, Min leaves.

Jia doesn’t know where she’s gone, but one day she wakes up and finds herself asleep on her front porch. Tucked underneath her is her clothes and everything she’s held precious, except perhaps a necklace and a small stuffed animal. Dazed, she rings her own doorbell and her mother scolds her and lets her inside.

She tries to contact her; she calls all the phone numbers Min and her family has ever had, emails her, tries to communicate with her in any way possible. She asks teachers and school administrators and doctors and politicians. At one point, she makes to the phone again, to ask any of Min’s friends.

But then Jia remembers that she’s the only friend that Min’s ever had. And then Jia remembers that there’s nothing she can do.

–

So she continues on with school, and manages to gather her falling grades back up to acceptable, so her mother is satisfied, so her teachers are satisfied, so she can believe she’s satisfied. But she knows that hole has been placed inside her, without anything to fill it.

–

She gets into a university in the middle of Seoul, and considers for a moment that perhaps Min is there. But then she remembers,
Min’s been gone for six months, and there’s nothing you can do about it. 

There’s nothing she can do about it.

But she can’t forget anyways. She can’t forget about the way her fingers had flown over her like wings, light, feathery. She can’t forget about the way Min had whispered things into her ear, lustful, sinful. She can’t forget about the way they had danced together, with their bodies moving, flowing against each other like fluid, moving as one.

Jia brings things ice cold to her heart, and forces it to freeze, capturing it into a glass box.

–

Once in university, Jia fucks every boy she sees, because she doesn’t want to work with the force of her own hand. She doesn’t care that she’s showing that she’s broken, that she’s not strong, that she’s not something behind the thin wall that she builds up; she wants to feel something in her, as if it’s filling up the empty space even when she knows it’s not.

After the thirty-fourth boy, she rolls over and for the first time, wonders if she’s making a mistake

But she forgets about it, of course. She always does, in the mornings. She wakes up to find that the boy is gone, and that he had left her a note, that she had been a good fuck and would she like to do it again sometime?

Jia’s grateful that he’s at least left her a note, and she pushes away all thoughts of Min haunting in her mind.

–

She can’t forget, she can’t forget and she knows as she rocks back and forth, on one of the rare nights when she’s alone.

Her mattress feels like a hurricane beneath her, taking her up, striking her with everything that it has. And she doesn’t have the energy to fight it, because she doesn’t. She can’t.

She wonders what Min’s doing right now. She imagines that Min must be on a train to the countryside, watching as mountains roll by and hills pass through seas, and she’s seeing the world, the whole world. Jia imagines that Min is traveling the earth.

But she wouldn’t. Jia knows this. Min wouldn’t. It’s not who she is.

But who is she to know who Min is anymore, anyways?

–

And Jia suddenly realizes for the first time that she’s been abandoned. And, she realizes that she is alone. And, she realizes that she’s never been alone before.

She misses Min’s arms wrapping around her, telling her that everything’s all right and Jia had never bothered to believe her because everything’s always all right when she’s around. She misses Min’s mouth pressed to hers, sucking every bit of her insides until she’s dry. She misses Min’s body beneath her own, writhing between bed covers, letting out little squeaks and turning over her flustered, pink face.

Jia misses. She misses, and keeps missing.

–

But brokenness had always been beautiful, hadn’t it?

She stares at the mirror at four in the morning, and wonders if this is everything she’s not on the inside. She wonders if, on the inside, she’s not ugly. She wonders if, on the inside, she’s not tired. She wonders if, on the inside, she’s not crying. She wonders if, on the inside, she’s not fucked up.

It must be true, she concludes, because Min had said it.

–

I want you hard in my body, 
Jia murmurs in harsh tones into the other boy’s ear, as he rocks into her.
I want you to fuck me so hard until I’m screaming your name. Does it look like that? I’m not screaming yet. 

The boy pushes harder and harder, forcing himself so deep into her that she screams until her throat is worn. She pretends it’s Min’s fingers working into her, and screams out a name she doesn’t know.

–

She finds about it in her third year of college.

It’s not a new thing, she realizes; it’s never been a new thing. Because once something disappears, it disappears forever. And sometimes Jia wonders if it’s really ever existed in the first place.

Family of three killed in a car crash. 

And the picture of Min smiling brightly, as she had when the photographer had taken her picture back in high school, never ceases to leave Jia’s mind.

She stares at the newspaper perhaps a little bit longer, until the man at the stand is suddenly glaring at her.
Are you going to put that back, or buy it? 

I-I’m sorry, 
she apologizes,
but when was this? 

That? 
He glances at the bold headline.
That’s old news, honey. Three years ago, in the winter. Pity too, because they were apparently just going out for week-long vacation. 

Oh, 
Jia says at her heart shatters, and she walks out of the shop, and out of the world.

–

She shakes in her bed, dry tears falling fast down her fast, streaking her cheeks with absolutely nothing. Her sharp teeth back bite on her lips, as she strains her body, wearing thin, breaking piece by piece.