Joy can still feel the warmth from Yeri’s body from last week; it has condensed into a pleasant droplet of pure affection and heat that nestles itself in her heart. She doesn’t even notice her boyfriend calling her name until he presses his lips to her slightly parted ones, and she nearly topples backwards from the surprise contact. 

“Hey, you’re spacing out again,” Seulong’s voice holds hints of concern and confusion. “You’ve been doing it a lot more recently, are you okay?” Joy looks at the man crouching in front of her, and feels very guilty. She was once very attracted to him, his rugged looks and cheeky boyish grin, his mellow honey-like voice that serenaded her on sunset evenings when Wendy wasn’t around to . But now she looks at him and feels… She doesn’t know which is worse, to feel nothing, or to feel absolutely bored. Her heart doesn’t flutter around him like how it once did, the butterflies in her stomach have flown away with every kiss until what is left is just an empty space.

They’ve gotten into fights much more often, too. At first it was one or two petty arguments about the suspicious, uncomfortable closeness of other course-mates, but they had always manage to make up. Joy had always suspected that these disputes were the tip of the iceberg, a prelude to a bigger, hidden problem. Their last fight had proven her suspicions right, when she had stayed out late to practice with Wendy for the girls’ assignment. She had come back to a raging Seulong, where he had screamed and lashed out at her in a drunken fit. He never remembered these events, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t, either.

So Joy gathers her courage, whatever little there is of it under her small, faded scars, and says: “I need a break.” She can see his face falling, his worried eyes turning dark, his lips thinning and edges curling down. She takes in a shallow, scared breath, and continues. “We’ve been having quite a few… disagreements lately, and I think it’ll be good for both of us to just take a break from each other.”

Seulong straightens his back and stands up to tower over her in an impression of power and ferocity, and Joy’s fingers instinctively dig their nails into the couch she’s sitting on. “What…” His right eyelid twitches once, and he pinches the bridge of his nose in an attempt to control his growing rage. “What makes you think that way? We are fine the way we are right now, no? I don’t even know what disagreements” — his fingers make apostrophes in the air — “we had. You’re just talking bull.”

He frowns and closes his eyes. “That’s right. You’re just talking bull,” he mumbles, more to himself than to anyone else. Joy knows what this means, and she stands up and slowly edges towards the door, as silent as she can. She stifles a gasp when his eyes fly open and gaze drags towards her. Seulong’s chest rises and falls quickly in anger, and he storms over to where she stands at the door to their apartment. “WHAT DO YOU KNOW??” He screams in her face, making her flinch, and grabs her shoulders to pull her towards him so their noses are almost touching. Joy is already greatly regretting sharing her beer with him, and she can smell the stench of the alcohol that sharpened his tongue and poisoned his words. “WHAT DO YOU KNOW, YOU STUPID ?”

That’s it. Joy slaps his face and pushes him away with all her strength, and rushes out the door. Behind her, Seulong recovers and reaches for the beer bottle that was quietly sitting on the coffee table. Roaring in rage, he chases her down the corridor and past the fire escape staircases to corner her at the lift, where she jams the button to call the lift repeatedly in desperation. The lift takes ages, and from the peripheries of her eyes she spies her boyfriend (or should she say ex-?) advancing towards her with glass bottle in hand.

To her relief the elevator emits a soft ‘ding!’ and the metal doors slide open just in time. Joy tumbles into a pair of outstretched arms and smells the sweet scent of freshly baked fudge brownies, a batch of which has fallen onto the floor from its creator’s open hands in a bout of shock. “Joy!” A bewildered voice utters her name, and she sinks into her saviour’s embrace. “What’s going on? What’s happening?” 

An enraged howl is the only clarification Wendy needs for now, and she hurriedly presses the ground floor and close buttons in the elevator. The horrid auric stench of beer approaches, and Joy shrinks in Wendy’s arms.

A piercing yell. Glass shards. Splotches of blood. A firm embrace.

The elevator descends in silence.

Joy looks up from where her head is buried in Wendy’s chest. To her horror she sees flecks of blood on the older woman’s face, but sees no injury. The shorter woman leans back on the cold back wall of the lift and lets her arms drop back down to her sides. On her right forearm rivers of blood run from a nasty gash near her elbow. In the safety of the moving elevator, Wendy raises a hand to her wound, covering it in a futile attempt to lessen the bleeding. Her pained eyes meet Joy’s, and curves into a grimace. 

“Are you okay?” Joy finds it absolutely ridiculous that those are the first words that come out of Wendy’s mouth. In all honesty, she doesn’t think either of them are feeling quite okay, or rather, not as okay as they could be. But she nods anyway. Wendy inhales and exhales, and lets her body slide down to a sitting position on the floor. “Good. Thank goodness. Now…”

She looks up at the tall brunette. “Explain.”

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a/n: hello there! to all of you reading this story, thank you so much. :) your comments and subscriptions really do make my day, i love it when the little globe turns red. so, really, thank you everyone! ^^