Seungwan falling in her lap would probably be explainable. Them hugging would be fine too. As oblivious as Soojung tends to be, these past few days, she seemed to have finally sensed something was wrong wrong and not just kind of wrong as so they could always use this as an explanation of their recovering. (And they sure had bounced back quick, hadn’t they?) Cheek kisses would be able to be waved away, maybe, at a stretch if Seungwan could bull her way through it enough (and maybe if Seulgi just threw in enough instances of ‘it’s not weird at all in Korea’ however exploitative those generalisation might have been) but this particular situation —  Seungwan’s arms looped around her neck, her chair precariously balanced against the wall and Seungwan leaning down predatorily on top of her, straddling her, Seulgi quite enthusiastically having her hands on her hips, their faces so close together, clothing so tellingly rumpled (but for the wrong reasons!) — has no solution. 

And, all the heavenly deities in the world be damned, this—this—is the one moment of all moments where Jung Soojung has absolutely zero trouble, no trouble whatsoever in reading the mood.

“Oh,” Soojung says. Her face is inscrutable. This must be what normal people feel like when they look at Soojung’s face, totally unable to figure out what it means. Seulgi should know what it means. 

It would do wonders for her nerves it she could figure out what that face means. 

She cannot figure out what that face means.

“Uh, hi,” Seungwan says. She unstrings her arm from back around Seulgi’s neck enough to wave. Seulgi is mortified but moving her hands to hide her face could just lead to all sorts of poor balance chain reactions and even worse results. With Soojung right there watching.

“Well, okay then.” Soojung’s voice is very level. She should seem more surprised.  Or was her surprised voice always  this flat? (Oh god what if she knew this whole time—no, that was impossible. This was Soojung.) “Sorry. I guess I should give you guys some privacy…”

She shuts the door gently on her way out.

“Well, that went really smoothly,” Seungwan says. She shimmies back into position. “Want to keep—?”

“No,” Seulgi says, and whacks her on the arm.

“What? She totally gave us permission.”

Seulgi pushes her off her lap.

“I can’t believe this.”

They can’t look each other in the eye, well mostly Seulgi can’t without breaking out into some horrifically red colour, aghast at the memory of getting caught, and so they retreat to opposite ends of the room to compose themselves and get their clothes back in order. (Wow, did Seungwan really undo some of her shirt buttons too? When did that happen?)

“I just. I can’t believe this.”

It could be either of their voices. Or maybe it’s just in her head. Which would mean it’s her voice. The disbelief rings true enough.

“I wasn’t really expecting it either.” A swishing noise as Seungwan fixes her hair, sweeping it over her shoulder. Seulgi knows the sound well enough to tell that’s what happening even if she’s not looking. Her soul manages to float it’s way back to her body in time for her to realise it must have been Seungwan who said that.

So she checks with her own voice. “I really can’t believe this.”

“I know you can’t. There’s not much we can do about taking it back or anything now. I don’t know what it is you think we can do. I told you about this.” Seungwan sighs. “I don’t think it was as bad as it could’ve been.”

“I was totally prepared to tell her we had just accidentally fallen on top of each other and ended up like that,” Seungwan calls from the other end of the room. Seulgi wonders if Soojung can hear her on the other side of the door, if Soojung is indeed waiting for them at all and hasn’t run away in mortified terror somewhere where people will be asking her why she looks so  flushed.

“Even Soojung wouldn’t have believed that,” Seulgi retorts. “If we were on the floor, one of us pinning the other down like in those dramas, she might have been willing to accept it.”

“No, no it’s totally possible! You were sitting in a chair and I slipped and you caught me because I was falling in that direction. It’s plausible. One hundred percent plausible.”

“Did you even lock the door?”

“I locked the door! Of course I locked the door! I totally locked the door!” Seungwan insists. “I wouldn’t do something like that without at least locking the door? Who do you think I am?”

Seulgi flinches. She runs her hands down the front of her uniform. Nothing else seems out of place anymore. The wrinkles in her shirt just look like wrinkles. Being the type of person she is, would it really be surprising to see some? She touches her hair. Fine. There’s nothing left to fix. She’s going to have to turn around to look at Seungwan.

She does. Slowly. Seungwan’s already been facing her direction, appearance back to being pristine and neat.

“But, about Soojung…” Seulgi in a deep breath. “I’m glad she doesn’t hate us or anything. I’m really glad. It could have just been really bad, you know? She could have told the school or tried to black mail us or anything really. But this is— This is good. She didn’t seem anything other than kind of surprised.”

Seungwan’s voice softens. “Me too. I’m glad too.”

She should be. Seungwan has so much more to lose than her. And yet Seungwan is risking it anyway, for her, for her feelings. She’s reminded that’s one tot the things she admires and respects about her.

“But, you know, it’s still a little funny,” Seungwan continues. “You wanted to tell Soojung so much I’m surprised I’m hearing this kind of thing from you.”

“Well, like, you never know until you know, right?””

“That’s true.” Seungwan looks down. Her hands are placed neatly by her sides, too straight, too flush to her body.  They press down the pleats in her skirt. “You never do.”

Seulgi senses something isn’t quite right. “But… Things seem to be working out all the same. That’s lucky.”

Seungwan nods. She’s being too quiet. It’s making Seulgi uncomfortable. She takes a step forward, moving closer to bridge the gap. Maybe once, she used to be good at this comforting people thing, but then everything got more complicated. Romance is complicated. But she is the person Seungwan’s supposed to care a lot about and she cares about Seungwan, so she should do something here, right?

She reaches our her hand to touch Seungwan’s wrist, like a gesture of ‘I’m here’. The moment they make contact, Seungwan’s hand springs to life and catches her, lacing their fingers together. Seulgi doesn’t protest. Seungwan looks into her eyes, resolute and glittering. 

“I’m glad a lot of things have worked out,” Seungwan says. “You like me back, Soojung is fine with us, no one has been disowned or kicked out of the house yet, the world didn’t end— It’s— The world didn’t end.”

Seungwan looking vulnerable isn’t something she’s used to. Even Seungwan looking hurt and dejected, she never looked very vulnerable. Instead it was like she was still always ready to bounce back and turn those feelings into something productive and, well, useful.

“I decided I don’t want to live my high school years with any more regrets,” Seungwan tells to her, like she’s swearing an oath. “Because you’re only young once, right? So I want to make sure I can remember my youth. And I want to make sure when I’m old I can be happy about everything I’ve done. I just wanted to tell you that, so you’d know. And I wanted to tell you that right now, so I couldn’t put it off and forget or mess it up later. Because I think you should know, you know?”

And what kind of words are there to say back to that? Should she say thanks? Would that just be too embarrassing. Seungwan is always the one telling her things like this. And Seungwan is the one who dared enough to even try and confess. To her. To her. Should Seulgi say something back? Something that’s worth anything? 

She can’t take too long to answer. She can tell Seungwan is getting embarrassed over saying such a thing now too. She has to do something.

Seulgi swallows. She hope Seungwan doesn’t see that. She hopes Seungwan doesn’t take that the wrong way.

She nods.

Seungwan looks back at her. Whatever she’s thinking, Seulgi won’t know unless it gets told to her. Because that’s how it works. That’s how words work. She won’t know exactly what Seungwan thinks right now, but she can guess. She thinks she can guess. She feels like that. Seungwan looks back and her and there’s something there beyond light refracting into eyeballs into sight. Seulgi doesn’t know what that is either but it feels like understanding and that feel like it’s enough. 

She swallows. She clears , silently. 

She breathes.

“So what are we going to tell her? S-Soojung, I mean. That we’re going out?”

Seungwan frowns. Not a yes, not a no, just too much thinking. She says, “Her reaction was pretty supportive. Would we have to? We could just say nothing. I think she kinda figured out the broad of it.”

No, there was still plenty of room for misunderstanding in what she saw and what conclusions could be drawn from it. Seulgi would have thought Seungwan, with all that she had at stake, would be a little more finicky about the details.

Maybe, she realises, Seungwan’s scared too.

Seulgi’s always been scared of things she doesn’t know. Maybe Seungwan is afraid of the things she does. Wouldn’t that be something? Son Seungwan, who can ford the unknown but won’t touch a map. Maybe that makes more sense than it should. As long as Soojung doesn’t say this or that about them, then it’ll close enough to if nothing happened. As long as Seulgi doesn’t put a real word or label on it, even after a confession, Seungwan doesn’t have to worry about what might fall by the wayside.

“Seulgi? You haven’t said anything in a while. Are you okay?” Seungwan says.

Seulgi smiles. That kind of thinking all in her head—she should do more of that out loud. Seungwan won’t know until she knows, after all. Seulgi says, “I was thinking about what I should say.”

“To Soojung.”

“To Soojung and to you. In reply to what you just said.”

“You think so much about everything. That must be exhausting.”

“Are you saying that because you don’t think I’m smart so thinking must be really hard?” Seulgi jokes.

Seungwan flushes, maybe not quite sure if it’s a joke or not. “No, that’s not what I meant—”

Seulgi smirks enough for Seungwan to realise it was teasing. Seungwan looks even more embarrassed to have missed the joke. More awkward, but also more like herself.

“You don’t have to worry so much about Soojung,” Seungwan says, trying to change the subject. “Soojung was just all ‘I should give you two some privacy’. She’s not going to tell, right? She wouldn’t. Not Soojung, right?”

Seulgi hates that Seungwan sounds unsure. Partly because it’s while she’s talking about Soojung, and partly because Seungwan shouldn’t ever sound uncertain. But who is she to talk, really. Even if she had optimistic expectations for Soojung, she still couldn’t deny that flush or relief when the she just calmly closed to door and apologised for intruding on them. It seemed like a good response. Not a negative response, anyway.

“I think Soojung will do whatever we ask her to. So we should ask her to do what we need her to. It’ll be okay.” Seulgi reties the knot of her tie that doesn’t need retying. She just needs something to occupy her hands as she talks. “But you were the one who was concerned she wouldn’t take it well.”

“I didn’t say that,” Seungwan says, the liar. “I just meant that she might think we’re…more serious that we are.”

“So we’re not serious now?” Seulgi says with a melodramatic gasp.

This time, it’s Seungwan who flicks her on the forehead. “I just meant, we haven’t even gone on a date or anything. What if you don’t like me once it actually hits you this is for real, huh?”

The corner of Seulgi’s lips quirk into a smile. “I don’t think I’ll be changing my mind.”