“Wait!”

Irene ignored her.

“Wait – please just – please, just wait –”

Her eyes shone with unshed tears, her heart struck with a pain so profound she thought she might die on the spot. She had to keep moving, she had to get away. She couldn’t let Seulgi see her cry. She couldn’t be vulnerable with her anymore – it wasn’t safe.

“Joohyun, please,” Seulgi’s voice broke and with it, the dam that held back her tears. Her shoulders slumped, her body curling in on itself in a futile attempt to shield the open wounds in her chest from sight. It felt like the very fabric of her being was being pulled apart. Every embroidered thread, every mindfully made stitch, every silken seam was unravelling – stretching her out into tattered pieces of a once beautiful picture.

“I can’t,” Irene choked out, fists clenched and shaking at her sides, “I can’t…”

She could feel the ghostly warmth hovering behind her, a tantalising touch just out of reach. Seulgi’s breaths fluttered like a breeze on the back of her neck, soft hiccupping things belying her tears. Irene knew she wanted to reach out; that Seulgi ached the way she did, desperate to lay hands on each other – to comfort each other, shroud her into her arms and the safety they’ve always offered. She could practically feel Seulgi’s fingers fidgeting, fumbling in the air around Irene’s wrists; waiting for the instruction to grasp her tight and turn her around.

Irene stepped forward, a warning against it. She couldn’t let Seulgi touch her or she’d crumble. She’d let her bear turn her to face her and with a single look into those heart-broken honey eyes, Irene would fall at her feet. There would be nothing left of her but the urge to soothe her love’s hurts; no name, no thought, no feeling but Seulgi’s. It couldn’t be like that. It wasn’t good enough; not for her and certainly not for Seulgi.

“Joohyun,” Seulgi sobbed, “please don’t go. I can’t…I don’t want to lose you too.”

“There isn’t anyone to lose,” Irene whispered.

She didn’t know who she was anymore, beyond being Seulgi’s. She was Seulgi’s soulmate, her girlfriend, the love of all her days and lives. Seulgi was hers, too; but Irene nearly couldn’t breathe with the weight of it all. Seulgi was perfect; she was so talented and smart and beautiful. There wasn’t a thing on this earth that she couldn’t try and succeed at. And she was Irene’s. Irene who wasn’t known for much more than being pretty and being cold. The responsibility she felt for her; the worthlessness she felt because of her…None of it was Seulgi’s fault. But she couldn’t bear it anymore.

Weeks and months and years – and it was coming to an end. She was killing them all of that time; it was just now that they felt the blow.

“Just tell me how to fix it,” Seulgi begged, trying to walk around her, to have Irene look at her – just see that she was there, that she existed. It wasn’t some ghost in the wind she was tearing the heart out of – it was her.

Irene ignored her, turned her back to her when she got close; walked away when she reached for her. Her skin felt numb where they might have touched. Like just the proximity alone was enough to deaden her to all else.

“There isn’t…you can’t – I can’t – nobody can fix me, Seulgi! I’m not broken, I’m just empty. There’s just nothing!”

Was there even love anymore?

Sometimes, she wondered…

It didn’t feel much like love. But there wasn’t anything else she could feel for Seulgi. Not loving her was impossible. It was not loving herself that was too easy. Like a blackhole, a void, that in all other feelings until only the numbness was left. She loved Seulgi, but all she could feel of it was an echo. Even then, she would bow before her; a worshipper more than a lover, too unworthy to do more than look upon the feet of her goddess.

“…would…would this help you?” Seulgi asked her. Her voice was so soft, trembling with a force barely restrained. Anger, maybe. Or sadness. Seulgi was too kind to be angry at her when she was hurting. But she could be sad; she could be broken that Irene was so numb to all of it, that Irene wasn’t even sure if she loved her anymore. That she’d gotten so far away from so close and Seulgi had never really known until now.

“…I don’t know,” Irene confessed.

“…But you think it will – that something will change, or you wouldn’t be doing this.” To me. To us.

Seulgi sniffled, looking at the back of the woman she adored and feeling her heart stumble in her chest. It always felt like she was running a sprint whenever she looked at Irene; always racing towards something, her maybe. An end, always.

“Will you come back?”

Irene didn’t answer.

Seulgi choked, a rasping breath masking the desperate sob that escaped her.

“…Will I ever see you again?”

Her heart trembled in her chest, stuttering, out of rhythm – like part of it had been ripped away suddenly. Seulgi’s voice was so agonised, back to that little girl who’d lost her parents; the one who’d clung to Irene’s hand in the dead of night, shaking with grief and despair. She was tearing away a wonder of the world, she realised, recalling how Seulgi smiled at her always, even on the days where she was sad or lost or angry. A whisper of her name, a touch on her hand, a look Irene’s way and she’d smile, like there was never any crack, any brokenness at all.

Why was she doing this to her?

“…Will you please just look at me?” Seulgi cried out, her hand reaching out again, clasping tight around Irene’s. Their fingers locked together in a rhythm easier than breathing; filling in the spaces, two puzzle pieces clicking in.

The shock of her warmth on her chilled skin pulled her eyes up. In a second, their gazes were locked. The world stilled.

Here, she thought, tears streaming freely down her cheeks, mirroring the torrent falling from those monolid eyes, See.

This is why she needed to go.

Irene’s grip lessened with every passing second; a slow release. And with every second, Seulgi’s grew tighter, until at last, it was just her clinging on.

Her hands felt clammy now, the warmth leeched away into Irene like everything else.

“Please,” Seulgi exhaled shakily, her head softly shaking.

“I can’t,” Irene mumbled again.

She squeezed Seulgi’s hand; a last goodbye, and pulled gently away.

Every step away was torment like she’d never known before. A lightening and a heart-break all at once.

She didn’t look back.

Not even for the whisper of the wind; the broken pleading of a star burning to dust behind her, its light now faded from the world’s view.

“…don’t go…”

She was already gone.