on a rainy sunday morning, you met hyun-ju.

you were sitting on the curb outside a 24-hour laundromat, a backpack pressed to your chest, hoodie soaked through. it was your third night without a roof. your phone was dead. your parents had told you not to come back after they found your journal — pages filled with love poems to girls. they called you disgusting. said you were broken. and then they locked the door behind you.

hyun-ju walked by in a long red coat that looked too dramatic for a city like this. she stopped mid-step when she saw you, tilted her head, her black bob cut framing her face like a soft halo. she looked like something out of a dream — sharp eyeliner, sad eyes, lips too perfect. she looked like a girl who had already survived hell and made it out in heels.

“hey,” she said. “you good?”

you tried to lie. said yeah. shrugged. looked down.

“liar,” she smiled, then knelt next to you. “you’re cold. and you’re shaking.”

you weren’t used to people being nice without asking something in return. but hyunju just offered her umbrella and held out her hand like she’d done this before. maybe she had.

“come on. i don’t live far. and my roommate just moved out. you can crash for a bit. no pressure.”

her apartment was on the sixth floor of an old building that smelled like laundry detergent and curry. she made you ramen. gave you a towel. you cried into her bedsheets that night, curled up like a kicked puppy. hyun-ju just lay beside you, her hand resting gently on your back, not saying anything, not trying to fix it.

because she knew. she'd been there too.

hyun-ju told you her parents threw her out the night she came out as trans. her dad called her a disgrace. her mom cried like she’d died. at sixteen, she found herself sleeping in a bus station, eating vending machine crackers, wondering if being herself was worth the pain.

“but i’m still here,” she said, brushing a strand of hair behind your ear. “and now you are too.”

over the next few months, you two became something soft. mornings spent drinking cheap coffee on the fire escape, nights dancing in the kitchen in oversized pajamas. she taught you how to do eyeliner properly. you taught her how to fix the sink. she would curl up in your lap when she felt dysphoric, and you’d whisper all the reasons she was beautiful. when you got your period and sobbed from the cramps, she wrapped a hot water bottle in her favorite scarf and kissed your temple.

you fell in love on the little things.

like the way she’d sneak strawberries into your lunchbox before work. or how you’d hum her favorite song while brushing her hair. there were no fancy dates, no expensive gifts. just two girls trying to rebuild something out of the wreckage they’d been born into.

the first time she said “i love you,” it was 2am, and you were both lying on the floor after rearranging the furniture for the fifth time. you’d been laughing too hard to breathe. she looked at you, eyes shining, and said it like it was the simplest truth in the world.

“i love you.”

you stared for a second, then burst into tears.

“finally,” she laughed, pulling you close. “i thought i’d have to write a whole song about it.”

your apartment is still small. some nights are still hard. the world isn’t always kind. but you have each other. you hold hands in the street even when people stare. you write silly love notes on the mirror in lipstick. she helps you tie your shoelaces when your back hurts. you paint her nails when hers chip. you still eat ramen more than you should. but now, it’s a choice.

and every time you look at her — your hyun-ju, beautiful and brave — you think about that rainy day outside the laundromat. and how, in a city that didn’t want you, she found you anyway.

pretty woman. pretty love. pretty fucking lucky.