The First Experience with My Female Friend
The dimly lit street lamps cast a soft glow over the narrow alley behind the apartment complex. A plastic bag still carrying the faint, savory scent of fried chicken dangled from my hand, and beside me walked my longtime neighborhood friend, Yujin, who had stood by my side for so many years.
Our relationship could be summed up in one word: a classic case of motae solo paired with the prime example of a “male friend, female friend.” We had started as high-school classmates, gone to the same university in the same neighborhood, and shared the ritual of dragging our slippers out of the house a few times a week to drink soju or tear into fried chicken at the convenience store. We had shared every embarrassing story—our failed dates, the times we’d been completely ghosted, even the fact that neither of us had ever actually dated anyone. We were true bural chingu, best friends since childhood, when there was nothing to hide.
At least until tonight.
“Oh, I’m stuffed. That chicken was seriously good, right?”
Yujin patted her full belly and giggled. She wore the same hoodie and sweatpants she always did, her hair pulled back in a messy bun. Normally I would have cracked a joke like, “If I’ve never dated anyone it’s because I’ve spent over ten years friends with a girl who makes my eyes go blurry.” But tonight her voice was softer, and every time her shoulder brushed mine the contact sent an unexpected spark straight down my chest.
There was a reason. Just an hour earlier, at the neighborhood hof, we had been talking.
“You’re really going to date someone one day, huh? If we both stay motae solo until we’re thirty, we should just grab hands in front of Yeongdeungpo Station wearing wedding dresses and take a picture.”
I had set my beer glass down with a clink, half-joking. Yujin, who usually snorted at my corny lines, had quietly placed her glass on the table and stared at me across it. Her eyes were different—completely serious, strangely watery, and somehow furious. A deep feeling I couldn’t read.
“You’re really clueless. I’ve never met a stuffer-dense person like you.”
“What? I did something wrong? What’s a godabi anyway?”
“Never mind. Let’s go. You must be drunk.”
We had finished the night quickly and walked her all the way to her one-room villa. The deeper we went into the alley, the heavier the silence became. Normally she would have chattered nonstop about some YouTube video or soccer game, but tonight all we heard were our footsteps echoing off the walls.
“We’re here. Go wash up and go straight to bed. You have lectures tomorrow, right?”
Just as we reached her front door I tried to break the strange tension with a casual wave. I wanted to escape this weird atmosphere fast. Yujin looked up at my face in silence. The yellow streetlight reflected in her eyes, making them sparkle.
She didn’t enter her front password. She just stood there gripping the doorknob, staring at the ground.
“Why? Did you forget something?”
“……”
“Yujin-ah?”
Before I could step closer and gently tap her shoulder with concern, Yujin stepped forward. She slid into my space until the warm, faint scent of her body wash mixed with the beer on her breath brushed my nose. I tried to back away in panic, but she snatched my left wrist like a fishing line and pulled me right into her.
“Y-Yujin? What the hell are you—?!”
Before I could finish, she pushed my palm hard against her left breast through the fabric.
Thump… thump… thump… thump.
The vibration traveling through my fingertips was far too strong and fierce for a normal heartbeat. Even through the thick hoodie I could feel the soft curves, the heat of her skin, and the wildly racing pulse. My mind went completely blank.
“That’s… what are you doing right now?! Are you crazy?!”
I tried to yank my hand away, but Yujin refused to let go. She wrapped both of her hands around my wrist and pressed herself even harder against my palm. The gentle swell and the firm, tense shape of her breast were so vivid I felt dizzy. My face burned like it was going to explode, and my heart was already racing out of control.
“My chest hurts so bad, you idiot.”
Yujin’s voice trembled as she spoke, and real tears glistened at the corners of her eyes.
Emotional Support
“What do you mean? Where does it hurt? Do you need to go to the ER right now?”
“It’s not my body that hurts……”
Yujin sighed deeply and lowered her head.
“You really don’t know, do you? I’ve been drinking with you every day, walking home with you every night, staying glued to your side… Did you really not have a single clue, or were you pretending not to?”
The trembling in her voice was stacked with years of pain and longing she had held back.
“When was I ever going to find out…?”
“Every time you complained about your dates not working out, every time you whined about other girls ignoring you, did you ever think about how much it hurt me? How much it felt like hell to smile at you every day while pretending to be just a nice female friend?”
A shockwave hit me like I’d been slapped hard across the face. The easy neighborhood friend who always had my back, who took every one of my complaints without complaint… She wasn’t just “some girl.” She had been the air I breathed, the constant in my life. I had never once seriously thought of her as a woman. Maybe I was just scared. If we crossed the line into something more than friends, would this comfortable routine disappear forever? So I had unconsciously locked it away.
But right now, beneath my palm, her heartbeat was beating so clearly and honestly that it hit me harder than any words ever could.
“Yujin-ah, we’re just friends, right?”
“Friends? Who the hell is friends with you? Did you really think I was born just to tear into chicken with you while wearing sweatpants all day?”
Yujin loosened her grip just a little, then slid my hand down her chest. The soft volume and gentle curves beneath the sweatpants and underwear pressed against my palm. My breath caught. She didn’t let go of my hand. Instead she stepped even closer, pressing her body fully against mine. I felt her lower body harden against my thigh and quickly thought of the national anthem. Our faces were almost touching. The warm heat coming from her flushed cheeks carried the scent of the beer.
“You’ve never known what I was feeling. Every time I got this close, my heart felt like it was going to burst, and you just hid behind the shield of ‘friends’ and kept turning me into a fool.”
Yujin lifted her head slightly and looked up at me. Behind the tears in her eyes was an undeniable, thrilling temptation.
“You were going to send me home again tonight, weren’t you? Even after I gave you all these hints?”
Yujin pressed herself even tighter against me, no longer hiding anything. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. This was the first time a woman had made such an active, bold move on me as a motae solo. My brain had already stopped functioning. All the lines I had hidden behind the name “friend” crumbled to nothing in front of her hot tears and racing heartbeat.
The word “friends” no longer offered protection.
I raised my trembling hand and gently clasped the one still gripping my wrist. With my other hand I cupped her cheek—half hesitant, half terrified.
Yujin’s eyes widened for a second, then softened with relief.
“……I won’t hide it anymore.”
My voice sank into the night air. I saw the corners of her lips lift just a little, and then my own lips covered hers softly. Under the yellow glow of the streetlight, after so many years of separation, we finally took one step deeper toward each other.
“……Finally you know how I feel.”
Yujin’s whisper brushed against my ear and cheek, carried by the night breeze. The moment our breaths mingled—the same way we had held our feelings back for so long—fell like warm rain on parched earth, both distant and intensely powerful.
The warmth spreading across my lips was no longer something I could hide behind a wall of “friends.” It was the honest, clear truth between us. The tension in Yujin’s wrist eased, and soon her fingers dug into my shirt, gripping tightly.
The yellow streetlight cast overlapping shadows of the two of us. After so many years of hearts running in opposite directions, the moment their rhythms finally synced, we found perfect peace in each other’s arms.
