Irene was sixteen and a senior when she first received the most unusual gift: a small brown pot filled with soil and a tiny cactus planted in the middle of it.

It was round and globe-like, littered with thin spikes that looked soft to the touch, though Irene knew better.

It was the lone green in the sea of red and white roses covering her study table, bouquets and single stems that Irene barely remembered whom she had gotten each from.

But she remembers the hands that had out to give her the potted plant, shaky fingers wrapping around the sturdy pot as smiling eyes greeted her at the hallway.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Joohyun-sunbaenim,” Irene heard the person say. A girl one year below her, whom she had tutored in Math for about a week or two. “Please accept my gift!”

“Oh,” had been her only reply. She was confused for the most part, not really having heard about such kind of plant given as a gift for the occasion. But she was cute, especially the way she blushed to the tips of her ears as Irene took the pot and mumbled a soft thank you, Seulgi-yah.

“Happy Valentine’s Day to you, too,” she added; bit the inside of her cheek to stifle the amused grin that was starting to shape on her lips. Because Seulgi became more flustered if even possible, and she looked like she was just about ready to bolt out of the school gates and never return.

But Seulgi had held her ground. The only sign that she was battling with herself were her fingers balled into tight fists. Still, she took the chance and bent into a rigid bow, and then said, “Joohyun-sunbae! Please go out with me for ice cream after school!”

(It wasn’t even a question. It was more of Seulgi yelling the words out loud, though Irene understood that she meant to ask but couldn’t because of her nerves.)

She wanted to say no, really. But Seulgi looked like her back was about to snap from how stiff she was, and that it took Seulgi’s everything just to ask her that, and so Irene figured maybe just this one time wouldn’t hurt.

She felt like eating ice cream for today anyway.

…

One cactus turned to two. Five by the time Irene graduated.

Seven when she had to move out of Daegu and to Seoul to finish her degree.

Twelve upon receiving her diploma. Sixteen as she moved from the dorm to her very own apartment.

Yet, there was only one Kang Seulgi.

…

Irene is twenty eight now, well-moved out of that small, studio-type place and into a humble two-storey house with a mini-garden, half of which are cacti of various shapes and sizes.

Thirty pots in all, and if anyone asks Irene how it started, there is only one person to blame, really.

She smiles as she sets the watering can down, and then sinks to her knees, her hand automatically caressing the back of her smaller form. Her very own mini-me as her friends love to tell her.

“Yeeun-ah, are you done watering the flowers?”

The two-year-old girl nods, beaming at her. Yeeun has her nose and her lips, but she definitely has her other parent’s eyes and their smile.

Yeeun carefully puts her own little can down before shuffling closer towards her mother to give her a hug. “Yeeunnie, hungry,” she says with that lisp that two year olds own.

“I know, baby,” Irene coos, brushes her fingers through her daughter’s hair. It’s starting to grow out of her short fuzz, and Irene doesn’t doubt that she’s going to need a haircut soon. “But Mama’s about to get here, okay? We need to wait—”

She’s cut off by the sound of their front door opening, followed by the pad of footsteps Irene will know anywhere. She picks Yeeun up and carries her inside so that they can both greet her wife.

“Ah, the loves of my life,” Seulgi says. She walks to where Irene is, planting a quick kiss on her lips, and kisses her daughter’s cheek after. “I brought lunch!” She lifts the paper bag full of take out on one hand, though her other hand is still occupied. It holds a familiar bag that bears a familiar sign that Irene knows fairly well.

Irene can’t help but chuckle. “You’re seriously going to make a tradition of giving me the same thing for all the occasions, huh?”

Seulgi hums, sets the food down on the island countertop before fishing out a new pot of, yes, cactus. “Surprise? Happy Valentine’s Day!”

“You still haven’t told me, by the way,” Irene reminds her wife.

“Told you what?”

“Why of all the flowers and the plants in the world, you have the affinity for cacti.”

Seulgi smirks at her knowingly, like she holds a secret that Irene has no idea about. She sets the pot down on the countertop too, and then takes her daughter who has asked for a change of hands.

“When I was fifteen,” Seulgi starts to say. She lightly tickles the underside of Yeeun’s chin, though it’s Irene who she still addresses. “I read about how cacti meant withstanding anything. And that they live a pretty long life, especially if you take really good care of it.”

“Okay?”

Seulgi shrugs, feeling a little embarrassed. “I don’t know. Fifteen year old me found it romantic. That I’ve loved you since I was twelve and it withstood time and age at that time. Distance when you moved. It still is, now.”

Irene moves closer to her wife, grants her a watery smile. “I hope you’re not trying to make me cry,” she says. Because Yeeun is peering at her curiously now, and she knows that if she so much as drops a tear, her daughter will start crying too.

But she also has just heard the most beautiful words, and she just really, really wants to kiss her wife right now.

So she tells Seulgi to cover Yeeun’s eyes, yanks her down when half of Yeeun’s face is obscured with Seulgi’s bigger hand, and kisses her almost bruisingly just because she can.

(And because she loves the tradition Seulgi has started, but her wife doesn’t need to know that.)