That morning was supposed to be perfect for Irene. Poor girl was so excited she even checked the weather. And Irene never checked the weather. It was supposed to be sunny, warm, the air was supposed to have the perfect percentage of moisture to prevent her hair from taking a life on its own and forming a bird’s nest on top of her head as she drove down deserted stretched of highway with the car windows rolled down.

The weather forecast was correct. But something more major than just a slight overcast unexpectedly er punched her on her nose and left her staring blankly at the off-white ceiling of her room.

She should’ve known that something was going to go wrong when she was able to fall asleep without any hitches last night. Irene was never one who could fall asleep before a long trip (yes, she still hasn’t grown up from that elementary school children mentality).

“What do you mean you can’t make the trip?!” She didn’t care that shouting right after she woke up would more often than not lead to a severe case of sore throat. She was way too cranky by the early phonecall to think of simple, fleetingly forgettably things such as condition.

It was the content of the call, however, that pushed her over the edge and prompted her to let out a loud, phlegm ridden scream.

Seulgi’s voice crackled through the speaker of Irene’s phone, glitchy and lagging as if her phone was also annoyed by this silly unforeseen turn of events, “I’m so sorry. But Henry is sick as a dog and I can’t leave him by himself… throwing up all over the toilet bowl like this.”

Irene’s mind was duelling between two very unsympathetic responses when Seulgi croaked once more and shut her up. She almost said ‘just drop him to the hospital and ditch him’ but another voice was saying ‘this is why you should never date before you turn 25’ and she was swayed hard enough that the first syllable of that sentence was already sitting on her tongue when Seulgi said,

“don’t worry. I contacted Wendy.”

“You what?”

Seulgi didn’t seem to catch the unmistakable twinge of incredulity in Irene’s what, and decided to keep barreling on with a wall of information so quick that Irene’s still half-asleep brain had to struggle so hard to catch up with it.

“I called Wendy earlier today and asked if she’s done with her exam and she said yes. So I asked her, ‘yo ok so Henry is kindda sick and he can’t even pick up his head from the bathroom floor, will you take my place and go with Irene on like, this week-and-a-half long road trip along the coastal area?’ And you know what? She said yes!”

Irene usually hated touching her face so early in the morning, because it’ll make her fingers go all greasy and disgusting, but she couldn’t help but plant a potent facepalm over her forehead when she heard (and processed) everything that Seulgi got to say, “we… we could’ve just cancelled the trip.”

“NO!” From how loud she yelled, Irene wondered if maybe Seulgi lied about everything and somehow, someway, orchestrated this wild conspiracy around her. Because how could someone have so much energy after allegedly taking care of a patient who was leaking from both ends of their body? “You’ve been so excited to go on this trip for the longest time ever. I’m not going to take it away from you.”

(But why would she do that? What does she benefit from lying about her boyfriend being sick and missing the opportunity of visiting all the quaint little seaside towns that they’ve obsessively googled during the entirety of their exam period, just so she could shove two of her friends into a metal tin can for a week?)

“But Seulgi… how about,-”

“Me? I’ll be fine,” if she was there, she would’ve waved her hands in front of Irene’s face, scoffing and leaning back on her chair so far back she was only -this- close to toppling over and giving herself a head concussion, “I have Henry to do things like this.”

“Yeah and I have nobody. Thanks for reminding me that.” Irene’s free hand slowly plopped over the side of her face, fingers dragging down her eyelids and finally resting over her lips, where she began to anxiously pick on the dried patches of skin.

“Well, you never know. Maybe you’ll find that special someone in this trip.” Irene’s mind began to wander in the brief silence that stretched after Seulgi let out that endearing laugh of hers.

Wendy. She’s a nice person. A person Irene wouldn’t mind being stuck with for the next few days. She has a good voice, a nice taste in music. She likes to eat, she likes the sea. She likes cute things, she likes taking pictures.

She checked all the boxes in Irene’s list of “perfect candidate to do a roadtrip with” and Irene believed it won’t take them more than a few hours to pierce through the arbitrary veil of ‘prim and proper’ and enter the ‘let’s get this started’ territory.

And she’s always liked to spend her time with Wendy. Wendy is nice. She’s always been fun. It’ll be great. She knew it’ll be great (although, if she believed it to be so, then why was her palm suddenly drenched in sweat? She only ever experience it in moments of great panic. And if she believed what she was saying, why couldn’t she stop convincing herself that Wendy is not a bad news?)

No matter how she looked at it, there was still that sour taste lingering at the back of her tongue when Irene tried to wrap her head around all the presented mess. And no, that was not because she has the bad case of morning breath after eating a whole bag of Doritos the night before.

‘No. It couldn’t be,’ she told herself, shaking the worry off her heavy eyelids with a quick pat of her cheek, ‘Seulgi shouldn’t know.’

‘I’ve never told anybody about it.’

“Fine.” Irene finally signed halfway through their journey into the awkward silence territory, and she swore she could hear Seulgi’s weak, muffled squeal coming from the other side of the speaker. But it could also be a sneeze she picked up from whatever virus or bacteria being excreted from her sick boyfriend. Irene didn’t know which truth she’d prefer more. “Fine, I’ll go with Wendy.”

“Great! Ok, I’ll tell you her address, ready?”

- - -

23 Findon Street, Carnegie, 3645

Irene wondered why Seulgi didn’t just send Wendy’s address in their chat, because now she had to try to scrutinise her messy handwriting while having to navigate the rented car through this humble, unfamiliar neighborhood.

Red fence and a gigantic gardenia bush.

Irene didn’t even know how a gardenia looks like. She wondered why Seulgi would give such vague description. But then she saw the house number 23 and everything fell into place.

‘Oh. That is a gigantic gardenia bush.’

Irene stopped her car in front of the red fenced house with indeed, a giant flowering bush cascading down the outer walls and hesitantly honked the horn of her car.

‘Will she know it’s me? She’s not familiar with this car’s honk… maybe she thinks it’s for someone else? Oh god what am I thinking about, I should’ve go out and rang her bell, where’s your manners Irene?! God dammit,-’

Just when Irene was about to unbuckle her seatbelt and get out of the car to greet the person who she’ll spend all her waking (and sleeping) hours for the next week with more hospitality, She saw dashing out from the front door. Her left hand waving to what appeared to be her mother and her right lightly carrying the modest sized duffel bag.

It made Irene grow slightly anxious because she carried a legitimate cardboard box filled to the brim with all the unnecessary necessities.

Wendy likes to take pretty pictures herself. She’ll understand, right?

“Good morning!” The passenger door was yanked out of Irene’s hand (as she has just barely touched it before Wendy beat her to opening it by herself), and Wendy plopped into the seat with a bright smile on her face, “well, this must be unexpected for you.”

“And for you too,” Irene half laughed, half grunted her words while she helped Wendy deposited her bag to the backseat of the car, “I’m so sorry for all this. I told Seulgi we should’ve cancelled it or postpone it or something.”

“Oh, no way will I let that happen.” Irene had her hand on the passenger seat to help her settle back onto hers and was fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of Wendy’s smile as she buckled herself in. Being this close to her, Irene noticed that her hair was still slightly damp from what must’ve been a morning shower, and the smell of her flowery perfume was still emanating strongly from her neck, and Irene would’ve never thought that Seulgi was capable of being so cruel before that day.

Very, very cruel. Even if she did it without knowing that she was being cruel.

“Are you hungry? Let’s get something first before we go.” A simple cough was all it took to dispel the nearly distracting scent of her travel partner before Irene gave her a side look that says, ‘you can choose what we have for lunch’ as she drove away from Wendy’s neighborhood.

The sound of her hand clapping in excitement brought a smile to Irene’s face. And Wendy’s answer to her question proceeded to change that smile into a grin. A proud grin. A happy grin.

An ‘I can relate to you and I find that very calming’ grin.

“We should start this road trip strong and go to a drive through. Get ourselves burgers and lots of french fries. What do you think of that?”

“That sounds perfect.”

A/N: Holy guacamole I didn't expect people to show so much interest to this story i'm completely and utterly shooketh.
Which is why I make this quick prologue bit for youuuuu
I hope you'll be content clinging to this for a little while first because I won't be writing the main story until next month probably, sorry...
Any questions or comments just drop it down bellow I looove reading every single one of them LOL