fic | you're beautiful | here and there, now and then

[mekosuchinae]

Title: Here and There, Now and Then
Fandom: You're Beautiful
Characters: Ko Minyeo(/Hwang Taekyung).
Warnings: None.
Summary: Tomorrow she will write another letter. For now, Minyeo listens to the rain.

Post-series. Spoilers for the finale. 1,064 words.



Here and There, Now and Then

Time passes as it does. The first month bleeds into the second which runs into the third. September.

Rain comes to Kampala, rushing through the streets like water between her hands. The children laugh and splash through the mud, then make apologies to Sister Ruth when she scolds them. Minyeo bites her lip and hides her own shoes, spattered with mud.

Matayo says, "Jemma, where are your shoes?" in his English.

Minyeo widens her eyes at him, but it is too late; she is caught.

Sister Ruth, her red hair tucked neatly beneath her frock, frowns. "Jemma," she says very precisely, "please remember you are an example to the children."

Minyeo fidgets. "Yes, Sister," she murmurs.

Sister Maria, who is also Korean, makes a face which she smooths as Ruth turns.

A hand at her elbow. Matayo leans forward. "I'm sorry," he mouths.

She says, "It's okay," and smiles. "Sister Ruth is right. I shouldn't have gotten my good shoes dirty."

At dinner Matayo sneaks her a half-roll, a precious thing of his own plate. Minyeo splits it in two again and gives half back to Matayo. She has not earned this kindness, but she has learned sometimes it is more cruel to deny an unearned comfort. We must all be kind, she thinks.

Matayo grins around the roll. His left front tooth is loosening now. She wonders if she will still be here when it falls. He says, "It's good, Jemma."

She nods. "Mm! It's yummy. Thank you." She dances in her seat, bobbing her head as she thinks and chews. She has had Promise stuck in her head all day, verse flowing into chorus into verse. The necklace is warm on her throat.

"Not that good," Matayo says doubtfully.

"No," she tells him, "not that good. It's very good. It's warm and soft, like someone sweet." Matayo laughs at this.

She finishes the half a half-roll and licks flour from her fingertips.

"Matayo!"

Yohana waves. Matayo leaves her, scurrying down the length of the table to rejoin his fellows. The trio of boys lean their heads together, Yohana so skinny, Arajabu so tall. Minyeo smiles at them and remembers the orphanage of her own youth, the loneliness and solemnity of the convent, her brother's fingers warm and wound with hers.

"Jemma!" Mirembe cries. "Jemma, I found a star! Come look!"

*
At night she cups the pendants in her palm. The chain bites into her fingers. Minyeo listens to the rain as it patters against the windows, half-closed. A cooling breeze shivers through the malaria net. In the morning she will have to brush water from the floor.

She strokes her thumb over the stars strewn along her collar. Another month, still. Sister Maria murmurs in her sleep: Eunsan-ssi. Ruth turns over, grumbling.

Minyeo rolls onto her side. She follows the malaria net as it trembles, pale in the dark. After a moment she loosens her hold on her necklace and holds it from her throat, to see how the stars shine. They glimmer dully, and the small star trembles as she slips her finger down the chain.

Another star shines brighter, in Yokohama now. She smiles, remembering the schedule Jeremy sent her. She ticks the days off on her fingers. Yokohama today and Yokohama tomorrow, then Seoul again for a mini-concert.

"I will only shine for you," he had said, his arm heavy around her shoulders.

She smiles again. Her cheeks ache, her heart too. Minyeo closes her hand around the string of stars. She tucks her knuckles to her throat.

"Taekyung-ssi," she says softly. Her face burns. She should practice so she can say his name properly when she sees him again. "Taekyung-ssi. Taekyung-ssi." She turns her face to her pillow.

Her speeding heart slows, beat by beat. A breeze whispers over her, blown through the window, and the fever in her skin recedes. She presses her knuckles to her lips. Rain tinks off the glass, and in the deep, swelling clouds rolling over the city, thunder rumbles.

Another month. Minyeo breathes in then out. Her breath rolls warm over her fingers. Tomorrow she will write to Taekyung; she wonders if he has sent another letter. She thinks of his last letter: the perfunctory admonitions not to burden others, the dry and at times cutting summation of events, his brief aside re: Minam ("His singing has improved," Taekyung wrote), the chord of music carefully marked at the bottom of the page. A work in progress, he prefaced it.

She hums the notes, one two three four, and thinks of how he must have worked himself up to share even this much of something as yet unperfected. Had he worked late in the studio, peering down at the paper, his lips pursed?

"Don't overwork yourself, Taekyung-ssi," she whispers to the window. "Remember to eat your carrots."

"What a nuisance," says the Taekyung who speaks only in her head.

She releases her necklace. Minyeo rubs her head against her pillow, shaking thoughts of Taekyung from her silly brain. The rain has slowed; the night lengthens. Tomorrow Taekyung will sing in Yokohama with Jeremy and Shinwoo and Minam. Tomorrow Minyeo will go to Lake Victoria with the children and the sisters.

"Go to sleep," Minyeo tells Minyeo sternly.

The soft rustling of the net lulls her. Sister Angelica smacks her lips as she sleeps, and Sister Maria sighs. Minyeo dozes. She dreams of falling stars and of rain cool on her warm skin, and of Taekyung clasping her hand as she leads the children, Matayo and Arajabu and Merimbe and so on, down to the Yellow Sea.

Reverend Mother says, "Jemma, take off your shoes," and Taekyung says, "Minyeo," just her name, just her.

*
In the morning Sister Maria wakes her, and Minyeo rises, yawning and bleary-eyed, to prepare for the day. Her necklace swings, loosed from her shirt. She tucks it beneath the collar as she dresses. She squeezes the stars once then lets them go, lets them hang from her throat like a constellation hidden between her breasts.

"Hurry, Jemma-jamaenim!" Maria calls. "We're going to start cooking breakfast."

Minyeo drags her trousers up to her waist and belts them quickly. She catches her finger on the tooth.

"Ah!" she says.

She sticks her fingertip in her mouth, too short on time to otherwise check, and she leaves the room for the morning.