Yeri waters the white geraniums that bloom prettily in the pots on the balcony of her and Joohyun’s shared apartment. She traces the vein-like structures on the petals, feels their silky texture between her thumb and index fingers, and hums a pleasant lullaby in an undertone. Her flowers need as much rest as she does, and like humans, they grow best with encouragement in a happy environment. The sky above is overcast as dark clouds drift across the inky sea of stars. The moon is a crescent, incomplete yet beautiful still.

The night is tranquil. Joohyun is in her room, sleeping, like any normal person would be at four in the morning. It is a sign that she is recovering from her insomnia, always a good thing, but it also means that Yeri finds herself wide awake — as she usually is at this time — but alone. A fluorescent light flickers on and off on the balcony diagonally below hers, and she hears grunts and complaints from the apartment, followed by the sound of the balcony door slamming against the wall. A hand snakes out to turn the faulty lightbulb off, and from the crack in the door on that balcony Yeri thinks she can hear a whisper of a familiar voice. I’m hallucinating, she thinks to herself. I need sleep. She shuffles off to bed, and allows the tendrils of that lilting voice to wrap themselves around her head like a blindfold.

The next day she hears Joohyun talking animatedly, her soft voice bright and sweet. She stumbles out of her bedroom and winces at the glaring eight a.m. sunlight that pierces through the glass doors of the apartment balcony. Her flatmate is standing there, surrounded by her flowerpots of geraniums and roses and bluebells, a flower that belongs amongst those of her own kind. Beautiful. She leans forward, at the corner of her bedroom and the living room, and calls out to Joohyun. “Who are you talking to?”

Joohyun turns around and smiles, her lavender hair tied up into a loose ponytail, and gestures for Yeri to stand next to her on the balcony. “Seungwan-ah, say hi to my flatmate.” 

Wendy grins up at Yeri, her eyes shielded from the sunlight by her left hand. “Well, don’t you just look wide awake.” The redhead gapes at her senior, taken completely by shock. How long had Wendy been living in an apartment just one floor under hers? Yeri struggles to find a comprehensive pattern of speech within her, and as she bumbles awkwardly her eagle eyes spy a hint of a bandage peeking out from under Wendy’s sweater sleeve.

“What happened to your arm?” Yeri doesn’t miss the way Wendy flinches at the question, and the way she quickly tugs her sleeve down with her fingers, and the brunette meets her gaze and imperceptibly shakes her head. But the question has already been asked.

“Arm?” Joohyun’s eyebrows tilt down into a frown. “Wannie.” Her word is in the form of an order, rather than a question or a statement. The underlying command was clear. Tell me. Before Wendy can open , her own balcony door slides open, and an long, pale, elegant leg appears. Yeri’s gaze trails up past the apple-green shorts patterned with printed fruits, past the slim and bare midriff not covered by the faded tee, to meet Joy’s eyes, dark rings encircling them.

Her beauty never fails to stun Yeri every time. The brunette looks like she has stepped out of a magazine despite the fact that she had probably just woken up, every strand of her hair neatly put in place to fall at her shoulders. is slightly agape, tongue slowly running against her bottom lip to moisten it. The only way Yeri knows that this is occurring in present time is due to the heavy bags that droop under Joy’s eyes, although it doesn’t make her any less attractive. Yeri gulps; this was not what she was expecting to see first thing in the morning. Not that she minded at all, of course, but she wasn’t supposed to see the woman, lest she fall for her again. Her heart drums against her ribs erratically.

“We need to talk,” Joohyun’s voice is sharp, and pulls Yeri back to earth. “Yeri and I are coming down now.” She grabs Yeri’s hands in hers, and heads straight for their apartment door without changing out of their pyjamas.

“Something’s not right. Joy was supposed to have moved in with her boyfriend,” She whispers to the redhead as they walk down the stairs. “Something’s just not right,” she repeats, and a whirlpool of uneasiness begins to form in Yeri’s stomach. Joohyun’s intuition is never wrong.

Unfortunately, that fact is proven right as the four girls sit together in Wendy’s apartment’s living room. Joy’s stomach is covered by a blanket that she took out from her bedroom, and her flatmate is taking great care to ensure that not a spot of skin is exposed to Joohyun’s prying gaze. But the oldest woman has the eyes of a mother, kind yet stern, all-seeing and all-knowing. She trains those same eyes on the two guilty-looking girls sitting opposite her, and Yeri knows then that there is no escape.

Joohyun turns to Wendy first, and extends an open hand out wordlessly. The brunette sighs and pulls her sweatshirt over her head. Yeri, taken by surprise, does not know where to look, and her eyes roam around the living room and its walls before awkwardly settling back on the girl, and notices that Wendy had worn a tank top underneath the sweater. “It was cold this morning,” she explains. Yeri doesn’t think that she wore the sweater just because of the weather, but decides not to say anything about it. Not when there’s a firmly-wrapped bandage around the older girl’s elbow and forearm, and a few patches of blood that seem to be growing in size.

Wendy closes her eyes in defeat when the oldest places her hand on her bandaged arm, and both wince when Joohyun touches the deep end of the cut on her elbow. “Who did this?” Joohyun asks in her quiet voice, now chilly and trembling with anger. She deftly undoes the bloodied bandages with quick fingers, and gestures for Joy to fetch a first-aid kit. Wendy directs the tall girl to where the kit is located, in a small cupboard above the stoves in the kitchen. Joohyun is a professional, having just renewed her first-aid certificate a while ago, cleaning the cut with antiseptic cream, then placing thin, sterile gauze on top of the wound and bandages on top of the gauze.

“You’re making me repeat my question. Who did this?” Yeri feels that the query is not actually directed to Wendy anymore, and sees Joy fidget from the peripheries of her eyes. “Joy.” The tall woman twitches in her seat and twiddles her thumbs nervously. “Was it him?”

Joohyun’s intuition is never wrong, but Yeri prays that there’s always a first time for everything.