Hello, Shoppers! It was brought my attention by my buddy yoonlovesyul that I haven't updated this story in a few weeks. So I figured I'd be Santa in February and give you all a brand new update after the comments about Drunk Seulgi's Confession came pouring in :~P I combined two of my old chapters to give you this new super (it's probably not that super, lol) chapter. As people of my generation and far older would say, it's a 'groove dog'. Now that I've made all you young whipper-snappers cringe at my 'oldness', enjoy the new update!

I am in deep .

I spent the next half hour after my horrible error in judgement calling Irene over and over again. What I even wanted to tell her, I had no idea. I knew it would be ridiculous to even lie, but I was desperate to ensure that she didn’t hate me forever after I had just confessed that I was in love with her. So I was willing to tell her anything she wanted to hear.

I lied.

I didn’t mean it.

I have a brain tumour and spout out crazy all the time, so you’re not my first victim.

I have Tourettes’ Syndrome.

Did I say I love you? I meant to say that I ‘glove’ you. Macy’s is having a sale this weekend and we can get 50% off on winter gloves. How ‘bout a shopping spree this Saturday afternoon, just you and me, eh?

I thought you were someone else.

Or I could just tell her the truth and be done with it. But that was easier said than done. This wasn’t some confessional box I could just enter where I sit down on a hard wooden bench and spill my guts to some unknown and indifferent priest. This was another person, someone with feelings, someone I cared about a lot. I needed to make this right somehow.

No response.

And when I eventually got through to Irene’s cousin’s apartment (which is where Irene was still staying), her cousin answered the phone and told me that Irene had already gone to bed while the house party was still in full swing. And I thought I had heard a room full of bar patrons when I assumed I was calling Joy before. I guess all drunk people sound the same over the phone.  

Crap.

“Ok, walk me through this one more time. What exactly did you say?” Joy asked for about the hundredth time.

It had been a week since I’d last heard from Irene. I was currently sitting at the kitchen table, resting my cheek against the warm wooden surface.

“I told Irene I was in love with her, Joy. And now my life is over.” I droned dramatically.

“Your life is not over, Seulgi. Have you tried calling her again?” Joy persisted gently.

“I’ve called her a billion times on her cellphone, sent her hundreds of text messages. Hell, I’ve even IM’d her a few times. Face it, Joy. She wants nothing to do with me. It’s over.” I lamented.

“You don’t know that for certain. It probably came as a shock to her; maybe she just needs time to think about things.” Joy stated with annoying rationality.

“What’s there to think about? I ruined everything. I could’ve just been happy with being her friend without complicating things. But no-ho! I just had to go and put myself out there like an idiot. What am I gonna do to undo this?” I wailed miserably, lifting my chin up to look at Joy.

“I don’t think you can undo this now, Seulgi. It’s out there and you can’t take it back. All you can do is see what happens from here on out.” Joy advised wisely.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I admitted in a grave voice before resting my cheek on the table top once more.

And then after another week of silence, my home phone and cellphone began ringing like crazy.

Irene was finally ready to talk.

I just wasn’t sure that I was ready to hear what she had to say.

So I avoided her calls like the Plague. It wasn’t because I was mad at her for ignoring me. But I was feeling like too much of a coward to deal with the fall out of the mess I had caused. Joy tried to advise me against this, but it was no use. Just as Irene had needed time to think things through, so did I.

But this period of self-imposed exile wasn’t meant to be when I got an unexpected call from none other than Wendy. It was a couple of hours after Irene had been calling my phone incessantly one particular Thursday afternoon. She had left me a few voice messages, but I hadn’t checked them yet.

“Hey, Wendy.” I answered as stoically as possible when I picked up my phone.

“Hey, Seulgi. Look, I’m sorry to bother you at home, but it’s about Irene-”

“Look, Wendy. I appreciate you trying to talk to me about what happened with Irene. But it’s between us and I will talk to her as soon as possible.” I interjected in as patient a tone as I could muster.

“What? No, I’m calling about Irene’s grandmother.”

“What about her?”

“She’s in the hospital.”

“What?! Why? What happened?!” I asked in alarm.

“You know she’s diabetic, right? Well, it looks like she had a bad spell or something when her sugar levels dropped earlier this morning. Irene and her mom were at home with her at the time when she collapsed. They had to call an ambulance and everything.” Wendy explained rapidly.

“What hospital has she been admitted to?”

“Bellevue.” That was in First Avenue. Which meant that Irene was still downtown.

“I’m on my way,” I declared before hanging up the home phone.

Then after sending Joy a text message while she was working at the bar, I quickly grabbed a coat from my closet before sprinting out of the apartment and locking the door behind me.

Normally, I would’ve taken a cab if I was going anywhere in New York City after 9pm. But since traffic was still a problem even after dark and time was of the essence, I walked down to the nearest subway station near my apartment and took a train into the heart of Manhattan. Then I walked a couple of blocks till I stood outside the tall, red brick walls of the first hospital ever built in New York City massaging a stitch in my side. When I got my breath back, I jogged through the revolving doors of the hospital, blinking the blinding fluorescent lighting out of my eyes. I approached the front desk with sweat pouring down my face from my exertions.

“Can I help you?” the receptionist asked curtly.

“Yes. I’m told that Bae Hyorin was admitted here a few hours ago for a diabetic attack. Can you please tell me which room she’s in?” I inquired in a polite voice.

“Seulgi!”

I whipped around and saw Wendy coming towards me from the elevator.

“Hey!” I greeted haphazardly.

“You came! I was just coming down to meet you so you wouldn’t get lost finding Irene’s grandmother’s room.” Wendy explained breathlessly.

“Thanks, I appreciate that.” I murmured, silently gratefully that Irene had such a good friend in Wendy.

“Come on, I’ll take you up to see the family.”

I offered the receptionist my thanks before letting Wendy lead me towards the elevators.

“How’s Halmunee Bae doing?” I asked of Wendy as we rode the elevator together.

“She’s stable, but the doctor wants her to stay overnight for observation.” Wendy explained soberly. I’d never seen Wendy’s perky face look so gaunt before. She must be really worried about Irene’s grandmother.

“Thank God she’s stable. How are Irene and her mom doing?”

“Well, you know Seo Hyung. She’s a nice lady, but she doesn’t deal well with stressful situations. She was pretty hysterical when the nurses had to sedate Hyorin earlier. As for Irene, she’s pretty torn up about this whole thing. She tried to call you when it happened.” Wendy went on, throwing a scowl my way.

“Yeah, I missed her calls.” I offered feebly, feeling distinctly guilty.

We had finally reached what looked like the first floor of the hospital and Wendy led me down a quiet hallway. I glanced through a couple of the doors and saw a couple of elderly people lying in hospital beds. Hospitals freaked me out most of the time, but this one wasn’t so bad. I had a feeling that the doctors and nurses here would take good care of Hyorin until she had recovered fully. That would at least be one weight off of Irene’s mind for the time-being.

Just then, Wendy’s cellphone began ringing shrilly in close proximity. She answered it swiftly, her eyes darting around frantically as if she was afraid that an on-call nurse was going to beat her with a stick for answering her phone in a hospital.

“Hello? What? Ok…just calm down, Seo Hyung. I’ll be there in a little bit.”

Wendy hung up her phone and looked at me with a weary expression on her face.

“That was Irene’s mom. She’s freaking out again because she can’t find Hyorin’s sugar pills so that the doctor can check the prescription.” Wendy complained.

“But I thought Seo Hyung was still here.” I murmured in confusion.

“She went back home to go get the pills. She asked me if I could come over there and help her look. I’m sorry to leave you like this.” Wendy apologised sincerely.

“Don’t worry about it, you should go give her a hand. Thanks for bringing me up here,” I replied in a gracious voice.

“No problem. See you around.”

She began jogging down the tiny hallway and I watched her enter the elevator once more. Then I turned around again and squared my shoulders, preparing myself to see Irene again after what had felt like an eternity. Just as I began berating myself for my lack of courage the closer I got, Irene suddenly exited one of the rooms, her arms folded tightly across her chest. Then her hands went to her head while I watched as she tried to steady herself and not start crying. Seeing her look so weary and sad made my heart ache in an entirely different way. Suddenly all of my petty behaviour of late seemed frightfully unimportant in light of everything else that had happened lately.

“Irene.” I called out gently.

Irene turned around to face me, an expression of surprise etched on her face. “Seulgi? What are you doing here?” My Baechu asked in amazement, coming towards me slowly.

I pointedly ignored the way my heart sped up at Irene’s approach by focusing on the matter at hand. “Wendy called me earlier and told me about your grandma. I’m so sorry.” I declared earnestly.

“Yeah um…the doctor says she’s gonna be ok. But seeing her like this…she just looks so frail, I can’t…”

Irene stopped talking because she suddenly began crying, big tears rolling down her cheeks like drops of rain. I was startled to see her break down like this; I very rarely got to see this side of her, except for when she broke up with Suho. I moved closer to her a second later and gathered her in my arms in a final ditch effort to prove to her that I still cared about her, that I was still here. Irene sunk into my arms, her violent sobs reverberating against my chest with shuddering tenacity. And all I could do was stand completely still and hold her tightly in that narrowly hallway perfectly made to admit two people.

I spent the next few days after that travelling in-between my apartment and Irene’s home to visit her family. Hyorin had the constitution of an ox, so she began to recover from her episode quite quickly. But she was still bedridden for close to a week when she returned home. So whenever I could get away, I’d come over to Irene’s place to help with chores around the house and cooking while Seo Hyung went to work during the week. I even sat with Hyorin on rare occasions while she was bedridden, reading her the highlights from The Times.

And all the while, Irene and I still weren’t talking about my crush on her. I’m not entirely sure whether she had any intention of bringing it up, but I knew exactly where I stood on the subject. The sooner one of us brought it up would come too soon for me. I was silently grateful that Irene was sufficiently distracted with her grandmother’s recovery and I wasn’t about to mention it, not yet anyway. And when I felt certain that Hyorin was well on her way to recovery, I finally stopped coming over to Irene’s, content to slink back into my own former state of solitude.

It rained a lot during that particular time in my life, physically speaking. While I enjoyed the sultry summers that being brought up in Seoul afforded me, I was especially fond of the rainy season. There was just something so crisp and clear about a rainy day as opposed to a sunny one. As beautiful a gift as the sun was, it somehow always distorted things to be sought out in the natural imagery, save for the blue sky overhead. But on a rainy day, or even just a miserably overcast day in Seoul, I could pinpoint the colours of lush green trees and vegetation more clearly in my neighbourhood where I lived. Everything was always greener on a rainy day, as if the notion of bright colours had suddenly erupted from God’s imagination on a flamboyant whim.

And then there was that refreshingly earthy smell evident in the air, which pulled at my senses like an invisible cord. Everything felt fresh and clean in the rain, washing away anything that sullied it on a summer’s day. I was a city girl to my core, but I loved being outside. Rainy days brought me closer to nature, precipitated from the drops that fell overhead, hitting the ground and making life spring forth from fervent shoots of grass. Colour returned to the world on days like these, and colour (instead of mental black and white pictures) always spelled potential for me.

Apparently talking about rainy weather makes me sound like I’ve smoked a whole bag of weed too. What can I say? I love the rain.

I didn’t quite develop a similar appreciation for rainy days in New York as I did with Seoul, but I still enjoyed particular rainy days, especially when I was safely tucked up inside my apartment and not trying to hail a cab outside or walk to the subway. But on one particular Sunday evening three weeks after I had confessed my feelings to Irene, I found myself on the fire escape, sitting comfortably under the metal roof, watching the rain pour down all over the city. I was listening to my iPod, my knees bunched up against my chest while I sat alone on the small stairwell just outside the living room. For the moment, I wasn’t that concerned with anything else happening in my life right now, content to stay out on the fire escape all night if necessary.

In my own way, I was sort of happy and at peace for the time being.

I didn’t even hear the footsteps behind me until someone began calling my name in close proximity. Then I shut off my iPod and took my white earphones out of my ears to stare behind me. It was Irene, wearing a dark trench coat over a pair of jeans and boots on her feet, her black hair decidedly sleek with moisture from getting caught out in the rain.

“Irene?” I asked in surprise, turning my whole body around to face her.

“Hey,” she greeted weakly with a tiny wave of her hand.

“Hey,” I greeted back with slight perturbation.

Then she was moving towards me until she came to sit next to me, mimicking my movements with her knees drawn up to her chest.

“Whatcha doing?” she asked in a politely curious manner.

“Just watching the rain,” I responded casually while staring straight ahead.

“Seulgi.”

The way she said my name caused me to stop staring ahead and look at her again. And then she said those four dreaded words that made my heart hammer like a freight train moving at full speed ahead, cutting abruptly through the pitter-patter of rain overhead.

“We need to talk.”  

This was it, the moment I hadn’t been looking forward to in the least.

Along with mentally practising the moment when I would finally declare my true feelings for Irene and she would reciprocate, I had also made provision for another possible alternative: the moment when Irene inevitably breaks my heart into a million pieces. And in case of such an event, I had thought of a few possible adequate responses.

One: I accept the crushing blow with polite resignation and continue on as we did before, as if nothing had changed.

Two: I cry my eyes out, shriek like I was demon possessed and heap curses and threats of disembowelment on Irene’s head before quitting the fire escape and exiting the building as an emotional wreck. Clearly, I’ve been watching way too much Telemundo lately. Damn, that is addictive when you’re single and . There's always at least one 'man of the cloth' who's a total hottie.

Three: I still leave the fire escape weeping violently and shut myself in my bedroom for an indefinite time where I will slowly become severely weakened by starvation, dehydration, subsequently dying of a broken heart. Clearly, I’ve been watching way too much of the CW Network lately.

And four: I say nothing in response, but politely smile and nod my head right before jumping over the metal railing and plunging to my inevitable death.

But that would be a messy affair and Irene would most likely be scarred for life. And plus, I’m mortally afraid of heights, always have been. I have an even bigger fear of doing anything to my body that causes me physical pain on any level. So in many ways, I was thankful that I was never prone to the usual teenage vices of cutting myself or drinking bleach to rid myself of my emotional turmoil. I saved most of the theatrics solely for writing in a journal on sporadic occasions. Suicide as a last resort had to be ruled out from the very beginning for me. My body was far too rigid and I was far too emotionally stunted to consider ending it all when I didn’t know all the variables still in play concerning my ambiguous future.

Which left me to mull over secret option number five: shut the hell up and listen to what Irene had to say without interrupting (too much). The time for childish vices was past; whatever happened now, I had to face it head-on, like an adult.

Irene paused momentarily before beginning the dreaded conversation.

“You like me?” she asked in bewilderment, her eyes wide with mystified amazement.

“Of course I like you, Bae. You’re a really swell girl: good sense of humour, a lot of fun, always grammatically correct…”

“That’s not what I meant, Seulgi. Don’t change the subject.” Irene pressed impatiently.

I hung my head ever so slightly, knowing full well that the jig was up. “Yes, I like you, Irene. I like you as more than a friend, I have for a while.” I relented in a serious tone.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Or better yet: why did you tell me over the phone when you were clearly hammered?” Irene demanded.  

“I think you just answered your own question. I wasn’t thinking…because I was hammered. I thought I was talking to Joy. I called her because I was feeling really depressed and I needed to talk to someone,” I protested weakly.

“Were you ever going to tell me?” Irene asked while staring intently at me.

“Truth?” Irene made no response, but waited for me to answer my own question. “No. Firstly, it was because you were still with Suho and you were happy with him. And secondly, you were a mess after he cheated on you and you needed a friend, not some lovesick chick hanging off of your every word. I’m so sorry, Irene. Please don’t hate me.” I begged earnestly.

Irene sighed loudly before answering. “I don’t hate you, Seulgi. I’m just confused by all of this.” I didn’t know what to say to that, so I stared straight ahead at the pouring rain. Irene fell silent too and the two of us continued sitting together. “What are we gonna do?” Irene questioned after a long while.

Somewhere in-between the rain falling down around me and listening to the sound of Irene’s heart beating in close proximity to me, I made a hasty decision. I couldn’t let this ruin everything between me and Irene. She was a good friend. Scratch that, she was a great friend. Did I really want to lose her friendship over some feelings that would most likely go away with time?

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean?” Irene asked in confusion, turning to face me.

“We’re not gonna do anything about this. I’m not asking you for anything, Irene.” I replied more succinctly, my eyes locked on her. I hesitated momentarily before taking her hand gently, secretly pleased when she didn’t pull away. Her warm hand in mine gave me enough courage to go for broke. “I love you so much. Your friendship means everything to me, and I don’t wanna do anything to wreck that. Nothing has to change.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want?” Irene asked seriously, looking away to stare at the apartment complex across the street.

“I think it’s for the best. After I heard about Hyorin, I realised that you needed a friend and that I was being selfish. The rest doesn’t matter,” I replied simply, even though my heart was breaking bit by bit.

And when I stopped talking, I had to wait for a long time before Irene said anything else. The vein in her temple was throbbing on overdrive, as if she was thinking furiously. Then she finally looked my way, biting her lower lip. And before I could stop her, she launched herself into my arms and began hugging me tightly. My hazy brain registered that I should put my arms around her in turn, although they felt like lead as they wrapped tentatively around her back. I closed my eyes and subtly smelt her hair when she tucked her head into my shoulder.

A perfect fit. But nothing’s ever perfect in life.

Then she moved her head away subtly, our faces just inches apart for a few seconds while we stared at each other, a certain charged tension filling the air. A shuddering breath escaped my lips just as Irene looked down at the ground, her breath sounding strangely hoarse for a moment. And then she had pulled away all too soon, her eyes shining brightly with unshed tears.

“I should probably go,” she murmured gently, finally daring to look me in the eye as she got to her feet.

“Or you could crash here tonight, it’s late.”

“Maybe another time.”

I nodded and got to my feet, walking slowly after her as she moved towards the living room window. Then she climbed deftly through the large French window and stood facing me, a pane of glass between us.

“Bye,” she murmured, sounding incredibly sad.

“Bye,” I whispered back, waving my hand.

And then I turned the other way so I wouldn’t see her leave. I put my earphones back in my ears before I could hear the gentle click of the front door closing behind her. And then I was alone again, staring at the rain falling over the city, replenishing and healing us both from the outside inwards.

Naturally, I caught a cold after my exploits on the fire escape during the rain storm. I was laid up in bed for a whole week with a runny nose, a wheezy chest and bad migraines, which majorly .

I didn’t hear from Irene during this time, but I was secretly grateful for that. I missed her intensely, but trying for some distance seemed like the best way to keep things normal between us for the time-being. The last thing I wanted for her was to place a double entendre on my every word and deed, subsequently putting her on her guard. Being sick gave me some time to think about how to keep my promise to Irene by not making things uncomfortable between us.

By the time I finally recovered and went back to work, I was more than equipped to make Irene forget that I had ever admitted to being in love with her. I put on my best display of outward happiness and joviality, agreeable with everything she said and did. Since she was still grieving over her former relationship with Suho, I tried my best to keep her occupied by doing all kinds of activities with her. We went to the movies, went shopping, even hit a few night clubs for good measure (I let her cut loose with drinking and stayed far away from the alcohol naturally).

We went to Central Park a couple of times on particularly sunny days and I visited her at home on her days off from college. She came to visit me just like before and I even taught her how to make fudge. And even while it seemed like we were having the time of our lives, I couldn’t help noticing that Irene still didn’t seem very happy. Either I at cheering other people up or she wasn’t as comfortable around me as I hoped she might be by now. I tried to shove this depressing thought into the far recesses of my mind in my best attempts to plough on with my plan, as if nothing was wrong. I was determined to prove to Irene that her being around me wouldn’t affect me physically or emotionally.

That wasn’t to say that my inner psyche didn’t often belie my better intentions. It still ached in my chest whenever Irene was near, knowing we couldn’t be more than friends. But I found that I was becoming increasingly good at pretending that things weren’t nearly as hopeless as they seemed, a coping mechanism I had perfected from an early age. Instead of facing the problem head-on and voicing it, I simply moved forward with painstaking steps, all of my energy focused on getting past this difficult chapter in my life.

But as a wise old soul once said, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And it finally came to a point where even my best attempts at pious behaviour weren’t meant to go unchecked for ever.

Irene was over at my apartment and I was trying to find a jacket to wear. We were on our way out to go see a movie and the air was quite chilly outside. As usual, Joy was working late at the bar that night. Irene stood near the front door, watching me idly while I sprinted through every inch of the small apartment, trying to find my jacket. It was a black and white checkered trench coat that I had just purchased a week ago. The design had a strangely soothing effect on me, plus I thought I looked quite nice wearing the jacket with a pair of skinny jeans and heels.

And I can’t find it! What is life?

“I’m sorry, just give me a sec, Irene. If I don’t find it in the next minute, then I’ll just throw on my Super Junior hoodie or something,” I apologised rapidly while I jogged into the kitchen to check the laundry hamper.

“It’s ok, don’t worry about it.” Irene called out in what sounded like a tired voice to me.

Not in the laundry hamper. Dammit, where is my pimping coat???

If I hadn’t been so focused on retrieving my lost jacket, I might’ve noticed Irene’s strange demeanour a lot sooner. We’d been hanging out pretty much all day long and she had been fairly quiet, a first for her. I dismissed it as her feeling overly tired from writing a bunch of different exams in succession in the past two weeks. I was hoping that a movie and quick bite to eat at the Pizza Hut near my apartment block afterwards might put her in better spirits. And in order for me to enjoy Irene’s bubbly disposition, I needed to find my jacket. I ran back into my bedroom and began ransacking my closet, tossing numerous items of clothing haphazardly onto my bed.

“Yes!” I exclaimed in comical triumph, fishing out my trusty jacket from the back of the closet where it had fallen off its hanger.

I began putting it on rapidly so as not to waste more time. And then I practically came to a skidding halt in front of Irene, my face flushed with the effort of searching for my jacket for a good 10 minutes.

“Found it!” I announced happily while gesturing excitedly to my jacket with my index finger. “Hey, are you ok?” I asked seconds later when I realised that Irene had barely cracked a smile at my ridiculous antics.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Irene answered, a plastered smile forming on her face which I didn’t trust.

“You don’t look fine. What’s up? You’ve been distracted all day long.”

Irene sighed loudly. Then to my surprise, she moved past me and shut the front door, which had been standing slightly ajar since she had arrived 15 minutes ago. “We need to talk,” Irene began in a solemn voice. “I can’t do this anymore,” she added wearily, tucking a strand of hair behind her ears before crossing her arms across her chest.

“What are you talking about?” I asked quizzically. “If you don’t wanna go to the movies, we don’t have to. We can just hang out here if you want.”

“It’s not about the movies, Seulgi. I can’t do ‘this’…us.” Irene emphasised with a gesture between our two bodies.

“I don’t understand. I thought we were having fun together these past few weeks. I thought everything was cool between us.” I said, the hurt I felt in my chest bubbling up to the surface.

“But we’re not, Seulgi. I’m not fine, you’re not fine. None of this is ok.” Irene returned heatedly, pacing agitatedly around me.

“I’m fine, Irene.” I protested, trying to reassure her.

“No, you’re not, Seulgi. My God, you told me that you were in love with me a month ago! You can’t pretend that everything’s ok, that everything’s normal between us.” Irene declared, coming to stand in front of me.

“So what are you saying? Would it be better if we weren’t friends?” I demanded, getting angry for the first time about this mess.

“No, that’s not what I’m saying. I want you around – that’s part of the problem! I love being around you, but I’m making things harder for you, harder for you to get over me. And I can’t help feeling guilty and…responsible.” Irene replied earnestly.

“Irene, you can’t blame yourself for how I feel, you didn’t ask for this. You don’t have to feel guilty, I can handle it,” I reassured her, placing my hands on her shoulders to calm her down.

“You shouldn’t have to handle it,” she quipped, not quite making eye contact with me.

“Why don’t you let me worry about my feelings, huh? I told you, I don’t want anything else from you, your friendship’s enough for me.” I responded softly.

“But it’s not enough, is it?” Irene protested in a weak voice, finally lifting her eyes to stare back at me. “It’s not enough for either one of us.”

My eyes furrowed in confusion at her words. “What do you mean?” I queried hoarsely.

“We can’t keep pretending that nothing’s changed. Everything’s changed, and it’s time we faced the truth.” Irene answered in an octave above a whisper.

I really couldn’t understand her position at all, or the sudden intensity in her eyes. I expected her to hug me, so I moved towards her and kept my hands on her shoulders. I really should’ve seen it coming when she leant in even closer till the breath from her nose was tickling my neck.

And then was on mine, tugging away at every ounce of resolve and strength I had stored up all these months as she kissed me with unexpected ferocity. I could feel my self-restraint slowly ebbing away, but I couldn’t let this happen, the realisation making me nauseated with fear. I used my hands on her shoulders and pushed her away gently, giving myself a few centimetres of sanity.

“No! Please stop, you don’t have to do that, Irene.” I remonstrated, my voice feeling parched from shock and hidden yearning hitting the back of my throat.

“It’s ok-”

“No, it’s not ok! I know you’re feeling guilty, I get it. But you don’t have to do…this.” I protested morosely.

Now she stared at me like I had slapped her, stung by my suggestion. “You think that’s why I feel guilty? I feel guilty that you’re hurting because of me. I didn’t kiss you because I feel sorry for you, I would never do that.”

“So why did you do it?”

“Because I wanted to,” Irene declared in a determined voice, stepping closer to me.

“You don’t mean that,” I declared assuredly, immediately taking a step back till I was standing right in front of the coffee table.

“Yes, I do.” She persisted, moving even closer to me.

There was no more room for me to move, unless I planned on stepping on top of the coffee table to escape her. So I tried my best to stand my ground, even though my legs felt like jelly.

“You’re just making things worse,” I stated with an accusing air in my tone.

“Maybe I am. But I’m not gonna run from it, and neither should you.” Irene whispered with finality in her tone. “Kiss me.”

I was reminded wistfully of a similar request made to me by Yeri one summer night at camp a lifetime ago. When did things get so screwed up that history was actually repeating itself in the here and now when it was most unwelcome?

“Seulgi,” Irene whispered, a sense of pleading and urgency apparent in her voice.

If only she knew what the sound of her voice alone did to me. She began running her hand along my cheek, as if she was searching for something. I closed my eyes at her touch and moved my lips tentatively against hers, brushing them lightly with tender . And then I pulled back just as quickly as I started, opening my eyes abruptly as if I had just woken up from a dream.

But Irene was having none of that when she pulled me back in, attacking my lips with vigour. At first, I kept my eyes open, my lips moving in an uncoordinated manner with hers while I tried to figure out whether this was really happening at all. But it wasn’t long before I closed my eyes right along with hers and gave myself over to the sensation, surrendering with body and mind to my heart’s deepest and most profane desire.

Needless to say, I was no longer that concerned with going to the movies after that.

And that's because the private Seulrene movie happening indoors was far more entertaining ;~D 'A man of a cloth' is one who works for the clergy. Like a priest, minister, reverend, you get the gist. Ok, you all have my permission to start spazzing like the hopeless romantics I know you to be *joins the party with confetti* Romance is nice, isn't it? It already makes 90% of the world population so much more tolerable. I get super generous and helpful when I have a bae, be sure to borrow money from me during those times ;~p Ok, I'm off to play more 'CSI: Hidden Crimes' on my tablet, the game is afoot *Benedict Cumberbatch voice* Leave me comments and early Valentines gifts, chocolate is always welcome. Pip pip cheerio!

Don't flip any tables at work, honey <3