The reunion, for most part, was bearable if Seulgi could say so herself. It was not as nerve-wracking as it was when she met Irene’s parents. Once introductions were over, Seulgi spent much of her time hovering around the buffet table while the Bae clan members gathered in their usual cliques and chatted the evening away.

Irene was with Seulgi most of the time and so were Taeyeon and Jessica. Jessica especially, made sure that Seulgi had company and was never left alone whenever Irene had to go socialise and greet her relatives because she understood how out of place it could feel during functions like such, she was once in her shoes, too. Jisoo would occasionally come over to get some food and chat before returning to her clique amongst the family members.

Seulgi took the time to observe the Bae clan and the house the reunion was being held at. It was Taeyeon’s parents’ home and the size itself told Seulgi that Taeyeon came from a well to do family while the trophies on display in the cabinets lining the living room’s wall told Seulgi that, like Irene, Taeyeon was also an overachiever back in school. Walking over to take a closer look, she was not surprised to find an appreciation plaque for her contribution as the marching band drum major among them.

A family of drum majors..short drum majors.

Seulgi chuckled to herself and took a sip of her drink. She looked around some more and found trophies belonging to Taeyeon’s siblings. Seulgi walked around the perimeter of the living room, looking at whatever that was on display - including wedding photos of Taeyeon’s parents and Taeyeon and Jessica’s.

She vaguely remembered stories from the wedding. Joy and Seungwan had told her whatever that had happened as it was happening because Seulgi was out with food poisoning that day. Her phone exploded with a wall of texts from her fellow Super Rookies, including photos and videos. It seemed that while it had been a beautiful garden wedding, the reception afterwards was a chaotic blur because the entire office team was there. Things were never calm whenever everybody gathered and the added factor of booze made it worse. One things was for sure, they certainly knew how to hype up a party.

As much as Seulgi regretted not being able to be a part of the fun, she regretted not being able to see Irene in formal wear more. She was swooning while she went through the photos in Irene’s phone the next day when she visited her.

Seulgi was pulled out of her thoughts when Jisoo came up and grabbed her arm all of a sudden, dragging her up the stairs in haste.

“Wh-what’s going on?”

“Taeyeon just declared war. I need all the fire power I can get. She already took Juhyun so you’re my next best option.” Jisoo explained quickly as they made their way through the corridor upstairs.

“What??” Seulgi was beyond confused.

“You’ll get it in a while.” Jisoo opened the last door and hauled her inside, Seulgi almost falling over from the force. Once she had gathered herself and her eyes had adjusted to the dim lighting, Seulgi took in her surroundings and saw that they were in a small theatre room that could seat around nine people. Some of their relatives occupied the back rows while at the very front sat Taeyeon and Irene who were already prepped for war, as Jisoo called it earlier, controllers in hand. Taeyeon was looking surprisingly smug, a Cheshire grin forming.

“Come on, Jisoo. I will now redeem my honour at Rocket League. With the help of my lovely cousin. Right, Juhyun?” Taeyeon turned to Irene for affirmation and Irene smirked. Seulgi could see Jessica shaking her head at her wife’s competitiveness.

“Whatever. We’ll give them a good fight, right Seulgi?”

Seulgi wanted to agree but Irene sent her a glare and she gulped. Jisoo noticed it, of course.

“Hey! Hey! Hey! No fair. You can’t just glare at her like that to mess with her head just because she’s your girlfriend and on the opposing team.”

“All is fair in love and war, little sister dear.”

“Whatever. You got my back. Right, Seulgi?”

“Y-yea!”

“Close enough. Okay. Game on!”

---

“You guys lost, didn’t you?”

“Didn’t even stand a single chance against them actually.”

---

Seulgi managed to win over Irene’s family with little difficulties by the time they were about to return to the city. Jisoo had clung onto Seulgi the entire time while they sent them off at the station, clearly not wanting to let go. Seulgi smiled and patted Jisoo’s head, telling her that she was more than welcome to visit them for a few days before she had to fly back for classes. Jisoo beamed at the suggestion.

“Juhyun, when you’re done with Seulgi, can I have her?”

“What?!” Irene moved to stand in between the two, possessively moving Seulgi behind her.

“Just kidding. My god, Juhyun. You really are a lost cause.” Jisoo shook her head while their parents laughed at their youngest’s antics.

“Come and visit us anytime you like, Seulgi. You’re always welcomed in our home.”

Mr Bae patted Seulgi’s back and she was beyond delighted. She bowed deeply to Irene’s parents, thanking them again and again for their hospitality in the past few days.

They did one last group hug before entering the station, promising to visit again soon.

***

Seulgi returned to work feeling more sluggish than usual the following week, it was difficult to get herself out of ‘holiday mode’ as Irene had put it especially after spending an entire week lounging around the house and going on dates with her girlfriend. Seulgi fondly recalled waking up on Christmas morning with Irene in her arms, the latter had fallen asleep in the guestroom with her after insisting on counting down to the holiday with Seulgi because it was their first Christmas together.

Sighing, she plopped down on her seat and got ready for work. She looked at the empty seats across from hers and sighed again, Joy and Seungwan had yet to return from their holiday and she would be alone on her island for the next few days.

She kept herself busy with finalising the draft reports from her previous fieldworks. It seemed that Jessica had worked throughout her time off and returned the draft reports with comments and corrections. Seulgi wasn’t even surprised and got to it right away. Even though she could afford to take the previous week off, they still had a tight deadline to meet and it was coming up soon. She wanted to finalise everything before Taeyeon and Jessica returned so that they could move onto the next part of their work without wasting anymore time.

Work eventually returned to normal, everybody came back fully recharged after their respective holidays. New job assignments were given out for the coming quarters of the new year and they started the preparation process right away. Seulgi, being a team leader now, was assigned her own small team of two juniors - their newest recruits, Hyejin and Wheein. Joy and Seungwan were both in-charged of their own teams as well.

Seulgi had previously gone on one fieldwork with the two before the new year. Hyejin and Wheein, while they appear to be playful rascals who loved nothing more than to have fun, were surprisingly professional and well behaved when they needed to be, much to Seulgi’s relief. She was still uncertain of her abilities to lead a team so having obedient juniors who worked well together was a welcome relief to her. She suspected that Jessica had put the three of them in a team on purpose, knowing that Seulgi would be needing competent juniors to back her up and to give her proper back up the same way team Super Rookies had been for Yoona and Seohyun the year before.

With her new position as a full time team leader, Seulgi’s work schedule got even busier than before. Ever since the new year had begun, Seulgi had barely been able to meet with Irene, who was also busy coordinating a new project herself. Irene’s schedule eventually settled down after a month or so but Seulgi’s was unpredictable as ever, thanks to their boss who was working hard in securing new company engagements to further expand their little company. Jessica was getting stressed trying to figure out how to allocate manpower because the addition of the new job assignments caused them to be severely understaffed.

Their boss proudly announced a few months later, after their manpower problem had been stabilised, that they had been contracted by a blue chip, multinational company to review their internal workings from top to bottom which was apparently part of the requirements set by their headquarters back in Amsterdam. It was expected to be a behemoth of a fieldwork, possibly very rushed and highly stressful. The fee they would be charging them was, obviously, quite handsome - probably the reason why their boss was so happy with herself for closing the deal with them.

Seulgi would be lying if she said she was hoping to be chosen to be a part of the team. Her schedule was packed enough as it is and it had already cost her multiple dates with Irene since the new year started about three months ago. As much as she knew that that fieldwork was a good opportunity to gain experience and exposure to the inner workings of a big company, she wasn’t sure if it was worth sacrificing her private time for.

She had been chosen along with Yoona and the rest of the usual team. At least Jessica had picked members who got along well with one another and weren’t awkward. Should the fieldwork be as stressful as anticipated, they would be needing a lot of support from within the group and also people who weren’t afraid to crack jokes at inappropriate times to relieve any tension.

Irene had not been particularly happy when Seulgi texted her about the new work assignments, Seulgi could feel it in her replies that the older girl was probably huffing and pouting at her desk across the city, trying hard not to be too disappointed. Seulgi was starting to understand what Taeyeon had meant by when she told her to be smart in her choices and to work hard for their relationship if she wanted it to last because they were working in completely different environments, the time they have to meet would be limited. Irene was working the standard 9 to 5 job while officially, Seulgi was too but they rarely get to go home on time - working overtime was a norm for consultants. Irene had more free time than Seulgi did in general and it could get frustrating for Irene because she couldn’t see her girlfriend as frequently as she wanted to.

Seulgi also had the added burden of having to travel to wherever their clients were with the minimal notice, sometimes as little as one day - Seulgi could be half way across the country within the next 24 hours. It was something that she had been praying hard not to happen and was lucky enough to avoid it entirely since they started dating. Almost all of her fieldworks were within the general vicinity of their city.

She recalled an incident where their boss had summoned Taeyeon overseas for a month. Needless to say, Jessica had been extra grumpy during her absence and was noticeably clingy when the latter had returned, to the extent of completely abusing her power by benching Taeyeon in the office. It was only when Taeyeon complained about being bored did Jessica assigned her to supervise one of the upcoming fieldworks, but not before throwing a tantrum that she simply had missed her in front of everybody, an occurrence that was rarer than a pearl aqua green moon.

***

As soon as the behemoth fieldwork began, Seulgi saw more and more of her team members and less and less of Irene. Time was not on their side. They were only given a little over two months to work with - and it included doing everything from gathering information from their client, collecting documents, completing their working papers, clearing review points and submitting them to the client for another round of reviewing and clearing. Mission impossible, Joy had called it, since they had about over 200 working papers to complete but Yoona assured them that they would come out of this in one piece, she had absolute faith in her members.

The first week passed in a blur and the second went by even faster. Seulgi barely registered what was happening before she realised two weeks had come and gone. She didn’t even noticed that she hadn’t called her girlfriend once the entire time until Irene texted to ask if they were still going to dinner that night.

“..” Seulgi cursed under her breath.

“Is everything ok?” Seohyun, being seated beside her, leaned over to take a look at Seulgi’s work, worried that something might have gone wrong.

Yoona’s eyes widened when Seulgi said no, fearing that whatever the younger girl was fretting over was work related. Her eyes widened even more after Seulgi explained.

“You forgot? What do you mean you forgot?"

"How can you forget?” Seungwan’s eyes went wide, looking like they were going to pop out of their sockets at any time.

“Seulgi! Did you at least text her? Or gave her a call this morning?” Joy asked incredulously.

“Yes? I mean…” Seulgi paused and scrolled through their conversation. It didn’t take very long for her to finish. She had barely replied to any of Irene’s messages throughout the course of the week and the chat log didn’t have anything registered for the day except for Irene’s message a few minutes earlier. “..I’m screwed.” she buried her face into her palms.

“My cousin has the patience of a Buddha. Go, give her a call. You can still fix things. Don’t stay late today. That goes for all of you. It’s Friday and it’s our second week here. From what I can see, we’re making good progress so I say we go home early today.” Taeyeon finished firmly. Her team had been overworked in the past two weeks, sometimes going home after ten. Dark circles were starting to become visible under their eyes and poor Seungwan looked like she could pass out at any moment.

“Right on!! You’re the best!” Joy fist pumped and Taeyeon laughed, reaching out to give Joy a high five.

“Once Seulgi gets back we can pack up and go.”

Seulgi didn’t need to be told twice and excused herself to make a phone call.

Please pick up. Please pick up. Please pic-

“Seulgi?”

“Juhyun-ah..”

“So..you’re still alive.” Irene said dryly and Seulgi flinched. “Let me guess? You completely forgot about our date today? Of all the days, Seulgi. We’ve been planning this for weeks and I even reminded you yesterday.”

“I’m so sorry, Hyun.”

There was a moment of silence, Seulgi was unsure of what to say. She heard Irene sigh, she was probably pinching the bridge of her nose, eyes screwed shut, trying not to get too upset that Seulgi forgot her birthday and also the fact that that was their first conversation in two weeks.

“Come over for dinner later.”

Her tone was soft and calm, a little too calm and Seulgi was trying very hard to keep her cool because it was scaring her. She gulped before replying that she would be there before eight.

“Okay. See you later, Seulgi.”

“Hyun?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Later, Seulgi.”

“Okay..”

Seulgi returned to their work base with her head hung low. Seohyun scooted over to ask how it went and Seulgi honestly didn’t know.

“Good luck, little one.” Taeyeon patted her back before the team was dismissed for the day. She then turned to the rest of the team and barred them from working over the weekend. She was surprised when Irene texted her last Saturday complaining about what a slave driver she was by having the team work on weekends. To be fair, Taeyeon wasn’t aware that the members had agreed among themselves to work throughout the weekend to buy themselves more time during weekdays. Taeyeon, being a responsible supervisor who didn’t want to let her team suffer by themselves, went back to work with them, much to Jessica’s displeasure.

Giving her supervisor two thumbs up, Seulgi made her way to a nearby bakery before heading towards the subway station.

***

Irene was greeted by the sight of her girlfriend trying to light the candle on a slice of cake she was balancing on her palm when she opened her front door. Seulgi, who was focused on not dropping the cake, jumped slightly when Irene cleared and quickly stuffed the lighter into her pocket. Giving Irene her best smile, she started singing the birthday song, in the hallway right outside of Irene’s apartment.

Seulgi stepped forward and brought the cake up to Irene when she was nearing the end of the song, hoping that she would blow out the candle. She did and Seulgi released a breath she didn’t realise she was holding. Irene’s eyes softened and Seulgi knew she wasn’t as angry anymore. Carefully balancing the cake, she closed the door behind her with her free hand followed Irene into the house.

Setting her things down, she went up to Irene and pulled her into a hug. Irene didn’t even resist. She tucked herself under Seulgi’s chin almost instantly, having missed the younger girl in that short amount of time.

“Happy birthday, Juhyun-ah. I’m so sorry I forgot.”

“Seulgi-ah..what am I going to do with you?” Seulgi gave her a squeeze and could feel Irene smiling against her neck. “You stink.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, I mean you literally stink.”

“Oh..we walked around the factory a lot today..so yeah.”

“Idiot...”

“I know.”

“I missed you.”

“Me too. And I’m sorry for ignoring you.”

“Don’t do that again.” Irene pulled away slightly and jabbed Seulgi’s shoulder. It didn’t hurt at all but that didn’t stop Seulgi from feigning hurt with an exaggerated expression to match. Irene rolled her eyes and pushed her away, only to be tugged back and soon she was pressed against Seulgi again, her arms naturally finding their way around Seulgi’s neck.

Irene was grinning, it was clear that she was forgiven. Irene was always quick to forgive, couldn’t bear stay angry at Seulgi for long no matter how gloriously she had screwed up, something Seulgi didn’t take for granted and appreciated very much.

“I won’t. I promise.” Seulgi leaned in for a kiss before scurrying away when she saw Irene’s hand was aiming for her bum.

“Get back here, Kang. I’m not done with you!” Irene yelled in between giggles.

---

“Wow she let you off the hook just like that?”

“I know..I know..I don’t deserve her. I know.”

---