“--”

“-gi”

“Seulgi wake up”

Seulgi feels her shoulders shake and a whine escaped before opening her eyes and taking her time blinking them to adjust the light reaching her vision, she looks at her surrounding before her eyes landed on Wendy.

“..what?” Seulgi asked sleepily.

“It’s time to go home. Come on, pack your things and then you could continue hibernating at your house”

She sighs before getting up and do what Wendy asked her to. Honestly, if she could maybe she would just sleep on the desk in her classroom for a good eight hours but of course that won't happen.

Wendy was confused when she met Seulgi this morning. The girl looked like a mess, hair disheveled, bags under her eyes, and she was unusually untidy with her uniforms. As far as she know, Seulgi rarely be in this state, except the day after she broke down in front of Wendy about her feelings for the senior.

And Seulgi confused her more when she asks Wendy if she could stay at her house.

“..This seems sudden? I thought you wanted to go home fast and sleep??” Wendy furrowed her eye brows, completely confused with her best friend behaviour right now.

“I am. I mean I can sleep at your house right?”

Seulgi backtracked when she glances at Wendy and see her expression.

“—or just to take a nap..?”

Seulgi fumbles with the hem of her shirt as they both walk inside the hallway, unsure if Wendy allows her to do that.

“Look, Seulgi” Wendy sighs as she turn her body fully to the said girl. “I mean of course you can, it’s just that this is so not like you.. Usually you would tell me about it at least a week before the d-day because you need your parents’ permission but now you just suddenly decided to stay at my house, it’s not like I wasn’t happy with your visit, but I don’t want to make your parents worried..” The last sentence seems to make Seulgi’s face drop while Wendy smiles knowingly.

“You haven’t asked for their permission did you?”

The unanswered question confirmed that it was right.

Wendy had enough of her best friend’s silent and unwillingness to tell her what’s wrong despite she already asked her many times since the morning, so she decided to "insist" Seulgi to tell her what’s wrong. She always know that Seulgi is the type to bottled everything up, like the time when she didn’t tell anyone about her feelings for Joohyun and ended up hurting herself when she couldn’t take it anymore.

Wendy remembered vividly the times after Seulgi told her that she harbored a romantic feeling for Joohyun. It was painful to watch. Seulgi would ignored Joohyun and acted as if she didn’t exist. The look that Joohyun had was heartbreaking, and she knew despite the cold façade that Seulgi wore at that time, the younger was hurting too.

Seulgi’s acts to remain unbothered by the older girl come to an end when Joohyun broke down in tears and begged Seulgi to tell her why the younger treated her that way. Yes, she begged. She was just too desperate to know the reason behind it and couldn’t help but blamed herself every second of the day wondering what she did wrong until the younger girl couldn’t even spare a glance at her.

Because the Seulgi that Joohyun know was never like this.

Where’s the awkward, shy and kind girl that she adores?

“Seulgi , please..”

And hearing the trembling in Joohyun’s voice was all that it take for Seulgi to halted her steps and looked to Joohyun in the eyes, for the first time in weeks. The younger could still feel her heart shattered at the sight of Joohyun crying, and she swore that she wouldn’t put up this act ever again, afraid that she would see this same view in front of her again.

Wendy witnessed it all, how Joohyun’s lips trembled, trying to control her emotions and how Seulgi was swimming in a pool of guilt.

“What are you doing?”

Wendy snaps her head back up and realized that she’s dragging Seulgi along with her. Right, she has to know what Seulgi is dealing with, no matter what.

“Let’s..  go to my house”

-----

The moment they step into Wendy’s room, Seulgi lunges herself onto her best friend’s bed making the youngest in the room sigh and ran her fingers through her hair in annoyance.

“Seulgi, come on we’re not here for this..” Wendy said as she repetitively pulls Seulgi’s arm to make her sit upright. She didn’t sign up for this.

Despite her ignoring all what came out of Wendy’s mouth, the raven haired girl finally give in when she knows that Wendy won’t stop bothering her until she tells her. The groan came out freely when she sat upright at the edge of the bed, with Wendy who’s already sitting beside her.

“Now, tell me what’s wrong”

Seulgi didn’t say anything and all that they could hear was the ticking from the bedside clock. Should she tell her or should she just lie? Playing games seems like a good reason and it sounds convincing because her best friend know how Seulgi could stay up-late just to play superstar smtown.

“Okay, first don’t get me wrong.. It wasn’t my intention to force or pressure you to tell me when maybe you don’t want to, but I don’t want you bottling things up like last time Seulgi, you know what I’m saying?” Wendy frowns as she recalls the incident. “I don’t want to see my two friends hurting again and I know you don’t want to see Joohyun unnie in that state again” the girl said, assuming that her best friend acting like this have something related to the Senior.

Wendy pat Seulgi’s forearm lightly. “You can tell me anything, and I promise that you would feel great after letting it out”

The former’s lips tug upwards at the corner when Seulgi nods her head and smile to her.

“Okay..”

-----

Seulgi nervously fumbled with the bunny-motives handkerchief on her lap as she tried to calm her racing heart. She already felt a little bit queasy at the possible outcomes that she may experience in just a moment. Her legs can’t stop moving up and down and she already felt a cold sweat running at her nape.

“Seulgi, why do you look so nervous dear?”

Seulgi looked up from her lap to her see her mother smile comfortingly, sitting across from her sipping tea once in a while. While her mother was a bit confused by the unusual behavior her daughter has, her father had an amused look on his face.

Her father chuckled. “Yeah you’ve been like that for the past 15 minutes. I think It’s about time for you to tell us what you want to say, no?” and then he glanced at the thing that Seulgi kept on playing with. “That’s a cute handkerchief, where do you get that from?”

He smiled when Seulgi’s shoulders relaxed and a smile finally appeared on her face, he mentally patted himself for his good choice of questions.

“Ah.. Joohyun unnie gave this to me, for my birthday” Seulgi smiled as she let her thumb caressed it.

“Ohh that girl” Her mother nodded her head a few times. “She seems like a good girl”

Seulgi smiled warmly. “She is”

“Joohyun? Have I ever met her?” her father asked confusedly while her mother just shook her head.

“I think you were still on a business trip at that time, when was it again the last time she came? A year ago?” Her mother questioned her, not sure if she still remembers it correctly or not.

Seulgi smiled sadly at the realization. Indeed, the last time she invited Joohyun to her house was a year ago, she would still be as close as ever if it wasn’t for her struggles relating her feelings for the girl.

“Yep” Seulgi answered shortly.

“Why didn’t she come to our house anymore? Did you lost contact with her?”

“No, we’re still friends, some.. things just happened” Her parents know better not to pried so they just nodded their head in understanding.

“Well I’m just glad that it was not a boy who gave you that” Her father joked, maybe to make the atmosphere more comfortable and to cheered Seulgi from looking glum but unfortunately it just worsened her mood.

“Well.. um.. actually..” Seulgi bit her lip, holding her other hand which she realized was trembling. Even though she already prepared whatever that she may dealt with, the thoughts always terrified her to no end.

She glanced to h