Yeju

There is nothing better at snapping me awake than a scream. Especially a woman’s frightened, non-sex-induced scream.

I jolt up, blinking. I am on the floor, and from the way my lower back and legs are hurting, I must have been sitting here all night. What the hell? 

I blink more as the drowsiness clears from my head. My hands are leaning against a purple, grid-patterned bed. Fairy lights snake around the bedpost. The floor is smooth and clean, not a single coffee stain in sight. This is not my room. 

What the hell? 

Lia’s adorable face pops into view, and I let out a strangled yelp.

What the h— 

Oh. 

Oh. 

I remember now. Lia was drunk, and I was watching over her. I must have fallen asleep like that…

I clear my throat. “G- Good morning?” I am not sure why I raise my pitch at the end there.

Lia pulls on her blanket as if trying to hide her body under it. Her face is as red as it was last night, while her wide eyes dart from me to her shirt and back to me again.

“Y- Yeju… Did we… Did you…”

It takes me a moment to realize what she meant.

My body shoots up. “No, no—”

I cut myself off when my back slams against the wall. Every part of me screams out in pain, and I collapse onto the floor again.

“We didn’t do anything, I swear!” I exclaim as I bite back my groans. “Yuna and gang brought you home last night, something about them wanting to go to a bar but you can’t go with them. I assumed it was because of how drunk you are? Anyway, I tried to get you to drink water, but you puked all over your clothes and then blacked out, so I changed out your shirt and put you to bed and sat here to watch over you because I didn’t want you to choke or something, and then I must have fallen asleep while sitting here.”

I take in a deep breath; my head is spinning both from standing up too fast and from saying all those words in one breath. 

“A- Anyway, that’s why I’m here,” I mumble. “I didn’t… well, whatever it is you think I did…”

There is a short, awkward pause before Lia lets go of the blanket and sits up. Her hands are still trembling.

“You… put this on me?” she asks with a whisper, staring at the baggy shirt she is wearing. Compared to the rest of her chic blouses, this shirt was the closest I could find in her wardrobe that resembled sleepwear. It also looked the easiest to put on someone.

“Yeah, I mean,” I say exasperatedly, “do you want to sleep in your puke?”

“No…” Her voice lowers even more. “But…”

A sour taste forms in my mouth. I terrify her. I am such a giant asshole that I terrify her.

Averting my eyes, I mutter, “I’m sorry. I promise I only changed your shirt, nothing else. Just… tell me who to contact next time this happens. Whoever you’re more comfortable with, I’ll get them to help instead.”

“No, no, Yeju, it’s not that…” She sighs. “Never mind. Where’s the shirt I puked on?”

”Soaking in water in the bathroom.”

Lia nods. As she gets out of bed, she groans and rubs her temples. “Argh, my head hurts.”

“How much did you even drink last night?”

“A few cans of beer… And then, a few shots of tequila…”

I snort. “Jesus Christ. Are you even old enough to drink?”

“Uh, almost?”

“Fuck, you’re young…” I rub a hand over my face. I keep forgetting how much younger Lia is; it’s easy to forget when I am an absolute wreck of an adult. “Anyway, want pancakes for breakfast?”

Lia breaks into a smile. “Sure!”

My heart warms, and I know I am going to make the best damn pancakes I’ve ever made in my life.

***

By the time Lia is done washing up, I am done with the pancakes. Her ponytail swings behind her as she hops towards the dining table, bright and eager.

She takes a bite and lets out a squeal. “Argh! This is so good! How are you this good at cooking?”

I suck my cheeks in to stop myself from grinning too stupidly. “Well, cooking is a science, and I am a scientist.”

“So you’re saying, if I become a research scientist like you, I’ll be able to cook like this?”

“Only if you continue to work with me on my project.”

She laughs at that, but I hope she knows I mean it. I do want her to continue to work with me. She has been such a great help after only a few days of training. And most of all, I’ve never enjoyed working with someone this much. Her energy is contagious and her optimism is refreshing.

“Oh!” Lia wipes her mouth. “Speaking of the project, I had this idea last night—well, the night before—that I wanted to tell you about!”

“Oh?”

She dashes to her room and returns with a journal article. As I skim through it, she rattles on, “I was reading up on random topics related to the project and then I found this paper! It’s about bacteria growing in soil, and they seem to do the same thing as the bacteria we are studying! Well, they don’t make colibactin, but they make something very similar to it. Isn’t that cool? Can we use this information somehow?”

“Hm, soil bacteria aren’t really what Victoria likes to study though…” I trail off as an idea occurs to me. Wait, what if I can demonstrate that my inhibitor can be used for soil bacteria? That would be useful for agricultural or other plant biology purposes. The application of my inhibitor would be expanded, and I might be able to publish…

I cannot believe I neglected an entire section of microbiology just because I was too focused on humans. Dumb, stupid humans.

I lift my head to find Lia staring at me with those bright, eager eyes. It strikes me just how lucky I am. This woman in front of me has a mind of a scholar, a voice of an angel, and a face of a goddess. Why the hell is she here, helping me out? An annoying asshole with anger issues?

“So, what do you think?” she probes.

I place the paper down on the table. “Lia, thank you so much, seriously. This is a very good idea.”

“Really?” Her smile widens so much her eyes disappear into thin crescents. “Yay! I wanted to tell you yesterday, but I didn’t get the chance.”

The warmth in my heart spreads to my cheeks. I let out a small chuckle. “I guess I should’ve hung out with you and the trio yesterday night, rather than work my ass off for nothing again.” 

“Oh…” Her face falls. “Did the experiment fail again?”

I shrug. “It’s just as you said that day—it’s not easy to direct bacteria’s evolution when they are not threatened with death. The random mutations aren’t helpful. It’s just not that great of an idea. Your idea, however, is pretty awesome. You’re smart, Lia.”

Lia blushes. “You’re smart too.”

“Nah, I’ve just been doing this for five years.”

“That is such a long time.” She glances at me. “You went through grad school during the pandemic too, right? Yuna told me… that it had a huge impact on your project or something?”

The memory weighs down on me like a boulder. Crossing my arms, I hunch over the table and let out a long sigh. “Yeah. They had to discard all non-essential experiments during the lockdown, and one of them is my ongoing mice experiment I was doing in collaboration with another lab. Thirty or so mice that took me months to reserve, that took my collaborator months to feed and grow to the right conditions, all had to be… terminated, just like that. 

“I tried to get the mice experiments back up and running after we came back, but my collaborator left for another job. I tried to find another collaborator and get more mice, but it was tough. Everybody had their own backlogged experiments to do. No one could help me without making me wait for years, and I’m not trained to deal with mice myself. So… Victoria made me give up the mice experiment last summer.”

“That sucks,” Lia mumbles. “I’m sorry, Yeju.”

I sigh again. “It’s fine,” I say, more to myself than Lia. “That’s life. Shouldn’t have put all my eggs into one basket. Learned that the hard way.” 

Lia lowers her head and stabs at her pancake. “You know… I realized I never asked you how you felt… after that incident last summer.”

This is the first time this topic is brought up between us in a conversation, but at least my first instinct isn’t to stalk away in anger now. I swallow the inevitable anger building up inside me with a large bite of pancake.

“I’m still figuring out how I feel,” I admit. “I know I’m angry at my father, and I have been ignoring all his messages too. My mother wants me to talk to him again, but I… don’t feel ready.” 

“That’s understandable. I’m guessing you’re close to your mother?”

“Very. You?”

“Not really.” Lia’s face contorts into an expression I cannot read. “Um, my parents don’t really… talk to me.”

“Oh.” Dread fills my gut. “Lia, that’s…”

She forces out a smile. “It’s okay. Forget about it.”

We spend the next few minutes eating in silence, but I know I’ve probably ripped open a can of worms that shouldn’t have been opened. 

“You know,” Lia begins, breaking the silence with a whisper, “this shirt you helped me wear is my friend’s shirt. Eunice. I guess she left the shirt with me and neither of us noticed. She’s… my best friend throughout middle school and high school. The only support I had.”

I frown. Lia calls RJ and Chloe every so often, but I’ve never heard her talking to anyone called Eunice before.

“She was also my best friend through my first year in college,” Lia continues. “I called her every single night. I didn’t go out, I didn’t join any activities, I didn’t try out for research opportunities. I just stayed at home every single night to talk to her. The only reason I still have friends now is that RJ was living with me. If she didn’t absorb me into her friend group, I’ll… have no one else.”

Silence ensues. I stare at her while she gazes down at her food.

“Is she the straight woman you mentioned falling in love with?” I ask softly.

She nods, letting a single tear fall to her plate. “I confessed to her over the summer. I don’t know why I did that. That was so stupid of me. She’s very conservative and… didn’t take it too well. I lost a best friend because of my stupidity.”

More tears fall down her cheeks. 

Putting down my utensils, I walk next to Lia and pull her into a tight hug. As I wrap my arms around her trembling body, she cries into my shoulder, soaking my tank top wet. My heart aches; to be rejected by the one you love, to lose a best friend like that—that would break anybody.

“Hey,” I say into her ear, “you’re not stupid for confessing. It’s not your fault.”

Lia cries for a few more minutes before tearing herself away from me. Her smile returns, more genuine this time. “I know. And it’s fine. As you said, I shouldn’t have put all my eggs into one basket, right?”

She chuckles, but I can’t bring myself to laugh with her. We both had a shitty summer, but unlike me, Lia bounced back. She came into this semester full of motivation, full of drive to start anew. Meanwhile, I let my dumb emotions take over me.

Both shame and admiration engulf me.

Lia is stronger than me. She is stronger than anyone I know.