Jisoo sat on her bed, one hand clutching a glass of ice water, the other resting within Seulgi’s. Neither of the two girls had spoken to anyone since they’d returned from finding Yerim, insteading opting to lock themselves in the room while everyone else sat in the kitchen and caught up. It was clear that Jisoo would have to come out and try to offer some sort of explanation as to what had been going on with her all this time, but the young girl opted to put this off as long as possible, trying to think of a good way to handle it.

“I don’t even know where to begin,” Jisoo said, trying to keep the panic out of her voice, “I’ve been lying to them for so long…”

“I’ll be right there with you,” Seulgi murmured, kissing Jisoo lightly on the shoulder, “Remember, if you’d never had that fling with Taeyeon, I would have never found you.”

Jisoo turned to the monolidded girl as a swell of emotion began to rise within her. Since they’d reunited, Seulgi hadn’t left her side. Jisoo found herself in constant physical contact with the older girl, as if at any moment Seulgi could evaporate and leave her again.

“Seulgi, I’m so sorry about the whole thing with Taeyeon. I never meant for that to happen, I was just so lonely without you.”

“I understand completely,” Seulgi said, giving Jisoo another kiss, this time on the forehead, “I did the same with Irene and I regret it. Because I know this will destroy her once she finds out. Especially since Yerim and Lisa are together now.”

Jisoo pushed away the stinging jealousy that she harbored for Irene, telling herself that she had no right to be envious of the older girl, given the circumstances. But just the thought of anyone else touching Seulgi was enough to make her blood boil.

“I’m jealous, too, if that makes you feel better,” Seulgi said with a rueful smile, displaying her uncanny ability to know exactly what her partner was thinking, “You have no clue how much I wanna pin you down and you hard enough to make up for all the lost time.”

The two lovers kissed then, basking in the feel of each other’s lips, tongues, and teeth. The only remedy to the horrible affliction that had been plaguing both of their souls for the past year was each other.

Jisoo’s entire body ached for Seulgi, ached so badly that she found her hands moving of their own accord, squeezing and groping each part of her lover. Seulgi did the same, the pair falling back onto Jisoo’s bed as they explored one another, their already sweat-covered skin becoming hotter and hotter by the minute. Jisoo feared that she wouldn’t be able to take it much longer, and that one of her movements would soon bring her to that glorious space between Seulgi’s legs, and she would lose all control then. But that was it. She wanted to lose control. She wanted Seulgi to take her, to her hair, to moan and whine as Jisoo pleasured her, to call out her name over and over again.

She had cupped both of her hands over Seulgi’s s when there was a sharp knock on the door, causing both of the girls to detach and turn towards the source of the noise.

“Jisoo, get out here,” Jennie called petulantly, “We have to talk. Now.”

Jisoo could hear the sound of Rosé reprimanding the brunette for her rudeness along with Jennie’s fading footsteps. Jisoo turned to Seulgi with a look of utter fear.

“It’s going to be okay,” Seulgi promised, caressing Jisoo’s face, “I’ll hold your hand the whole time if you want.”

“You’re making me feel like I’m a baby or something…”

“That’s because you are. You’re my baby.” Seulgi said plainly.

Jisoo practically slammed her face against Seulgi’s in response, hungrily attacking the older girl’s lips with her own, hoping that the kiss would be enough to effectively convey all of the wonderful things she felt for her newly reacquired love.

They walked out of the room hand in hand.

As the couple stepped into the kitchen, all eyes turned to them. Jisoo took a deep breath, glancing over at Seulgi one last time before beginning.

“So, I think it’s time that I told you all the truth.”

***

“So this Jisoo girl… she’s the one who kidnapped Kang?” Tiffany asked, practically spitting out the name of her wife’s lover. Although the other members of the council had no idea about this aspect of the story, it was still difficult for her to speak so freely about someone who had, less than two days ago, been with Taeyeon.

“Yes. I don’t know what her motivation was, but she did. As soon as I left, and Kang arrived, she disabled Kang’s sub and extracted her from it.” Taeyeon said.

“But why were you even there in the first place?” Sooyoung asked, incredulousness seeping into her voice, “Plastic Beach is a highly dangerous area.”

“I can answer that,” Tiffany interjected before Taeyeon could speak, “It’s entirely my fault. I wanted Taeyeon to do some covert recon for me so we could get a better idea of what’s going on there.”

“Without the council’s consent?” Sunny demanded.

“Yes, and I apologize deeply for our clandestine operations. We can work out the details later. For now, our main concern is retrieving Seulgi from Plastic Beach.”

“Why do we even care for someone who arrived at the colony less than two weeks ago? Sure, she was useful as a combatant, but footsoldiers are a dime a dozen. The people that live at Plastic Beach are extremely capable. We would lose more resources going there than we would letting it be.” Sunny’s appearance did not lend to the cold, calculating demeanor that the petite girl possesed.

“Well, to begin, her partner would likely present a problem if we were to leave Kang behind. Not that Irene would be an actual issue… the real issue is that Kang has vital information about the colony. The inner workings of the base, our location, everything. We can’t allow such things to fall into the wrong hands.”

There was a murmur of assent from the other council members. Sunny remained hesitant but understood that she was outnumbered.

Tiffany smiled, knowing that her explanation would be enough. At the end of the day, they always trusted her intuition. Especially in an unfamiliar situation such as this one. They understood that secrets about the colony had to be kept.

But in truth, the only thing Tiffany wanted to retrieve was Jisoo’s head.

***

Irene had never been much of a crier. Even back before her life became a literal living hell, she’d always had trouble expressing her sadness in the form of tears. Usually, she could accept the loss of someone she loved relatively smoothly. She would be sad, of course, but she would never express it openly, and she was able to move on in a swift manner.

But this was different. Seulgi had been the only constant in her life for the past year. Irene had lost everything but her. Without her, the stifling walls of loneliness descended, squeezing tears out of the misplaced-feeling girl, leaving her a curled up, weeping, pathetic husk of her former self.

She’d been this way since the news of Seulgi’s kidnapping was given to her. She had slept for a few hours between fits of crying, but most of her time was spent laying in bed, occasionally moving to drink water or eat something when she was hungry, clutching her tear-soaked pillow. There was no sense of time passing, only the constant sharp pain of Seulgi’s absence.

Apparently, enough time had passed to where people began to worry about her, for there came a point where there were repeated knocks on her front door, all of which went unanswered. Irene knew that eventually someone would simply barge in and that she would have to deal with the outside world again, but for now she chose to wallow in her depression.

To her surprise, it wasn’t Yuri or some other soldier that came to pull her out of isolation. It was Seohyun. The younger girl remained as nervously polite as ever, offering a courtesy knock on Irene’s bedroom door.

“Irene? I came to check on you. Are you alright in there?”

Irene didn’t respond, instead hugging her pillow tighter, falling back into her habit of pretending that the fluffy cushion was Seulgi. She shut her eyes tight and willed the tears that were threatening to leak out of them to stop. She had to be presentable for Seohyun. Seulgi wouldn’t approve of her showing weakness.

The door creaked open slowly, and Seohyun began poking her head in with caution. Irene sat up, relaxing back onto the headboard of the bed, furiously wiping away any residual tears with the butts of her palms.

“Irene?”

“You can come in. I’m decent.”

Seohyun stepped into the room fully, not quite shutting the door behind her. Her bashful eyes widened as she set them upon Irene, clearly taken aback by the older girl’s state.

“Irene…”

“I know,” the dark-haired girl said, raising a hand to cut Seohyun off, “I look terrible, and I don’t need your sympathy. What do you want?”

“We’ve organised everything related to the mission to retrieve Seulgi. We’re going to be leaving in two days… we’re bringing an entire invasion force.”

“An entire invasion force?”

“Yes. The people of Plastic Beach are highly dangerous.” Seohyun cupped a hand over as the words left her lips, realizing her mistake far too late.

“They’re that b-bad?” Irene asked, unable to contain the wash of worry and sorrow that was threatening to control her. She could feel her lip quivering and her breath beginning to hitch; she hated herself for how weak she must have looked, and she hated Seohyun for the expression of deep sympathy that came upon her face.

“No, no, they’re not inherently violent, they’re just very capable…” Seohyun sat beside Irene on the bed and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

Judging by the stiffness of the younger girl, Irene could tell that she was very unsure of how her actions would be interpreted. Irene didn’t mind. She found that the physical contact was able to make her feel infinitesimally better, and so she leaned against Seohyun.

“Who are these people, anyway? And what do they want from Seulgi?”

“Well, originally, Plastic Beach is where the colony was located. Before we moved here, this place was just another one of our remote bases, and we mainly used it for storage,” Seohyun explained, awkwardly shifting around Irene to get into a better position, “But one day, something happened. We’re not exactly sure how or why, but an army of robots arrived and attacked us. Their technology was vastly superior to ours. We didn’t stand a chance. Our people were decimated. They captured the survivors, forced us to leave. They didn’t explain anything about why they were there, or why they wanted the island, they just told us to leave. So we did. We took what tech we had, and whatever we could steal without getting caught, and moved here. This place wouldn’t have been big enough to house the colony before we were attacked, but they killed more than half of our people, so we fit pretty well. That was seven years ago.”

“I’m sorry…” Irene said, turning to look at the younger girl. She hadn’t expected to hear such a long-winded tale. Irene felt a newfound respect for everyone in the colony, even Yuri.

Seohyun stared  idly into the distance, eyes unfocused and glassy. She gave no answer for a full minute, instead allowing her head to lull against Irene’s, relaxing fully and finally looking comfortable.

“But the people that kidnapped Seulgi were different from the robots. They were humans. Only a few of them, as far as we know. They must have recently arrived there, but they’re assisting the robots nonetheless.”

“So do you think Seulgi could still be alive?” Irene said hopefully, “Since the people might not be as ruthless as the robots?”

“I think so. From the few scouting missions we’ve done since they arrived, they seem relatively unaffiliated with the robots. Though, we can never be for sure. They have to be somewhat sympathetic though, because they own a giant dog.”

“A giant dog?” Irene asked wistfully, taking her turn to get lost in a fog of memories, “I knew a few people who owned a giant dog. They were some of the bravest people I’ve ever met.”

Seohyun nodded and the pair was quiet for a bit.

“You mentioned before that you know what it’s like to lose someone close to you. This is what you meant, right?”

“Yes. My family made it out alive. In fact, they still live in the colony now, but someone else didn’t,” Seohyun whispered, still staring off into the distance, “Someone I really cared for. Her name was Jessica.”

“You two were together?”

“No,” the younger girl said with a light chuckle, “We were best friends. Since we were little. We grew up together. I was quiet and shy, and she always stood up for me when the older kids made fun of me. I loved her, I really did. I just never had the guts to tell her. And now I never will… and I refuse to let that happen to you and Seulgi. You’re not going to lose her like I lost Jessica. We’re going to go to Plastic Beach, and we’re going to find her. And we’re going to bring her back. I swear.”

The two girls locked eyes, their faces inches away. Irene was overcome with emotion for the taller girl; a mixture of sympathy and gratefulness flooded into Irene.

“Thank you,” Irene whispered, “I’m really sorry you had to go through that.”

Irene took Seohyun’s free hand into hers and offered it a tight squeeze. The younger girl hesitated for a moment, as if she were about to say something, but seemed to think better of it, instead opting to give a small, wordless smile.

“Who ordered you to come here?” Irene asked after a while, “Was it Tiffany?”

“No… no one ordered me. I was just worried.”

Irene smiled, closed her eyes, and cuddled into Seohyun’s shoulder. For some reason, the idea that Seohyun had come here of her own volition was immensely comforting. Irene never thought that crying her eyes out could be such tiring work; she was asleep within minutes.

----------------

Admittedly, I've been kinda neglecting "Plastic Beach" for "After Forever" lately, so I decided to finish up this chapter today and release it. Like I said, not abandoning this by any means, it's just that "After Forever" is much easier for me to work on (shorter chapters, less intricate plot, etc.) given the amount of work I'm doing this summer. Plus I'm kinda a bit burnt out from writing the "Demon Days AU" stuff for now. But this story will be finished, I promise, AND the story after it. Just not as frequent updates as I normally do.

Also the next chapter is gonna be a bit slow too, because there's A LOT of action coming up that I feel like you guys are going to simultaneously love and hate me for...

Thanks for reading<3