Heyo! How's everyone doing in the world? I meant to post this sooner in the day, but burnt my hand while making a pork roast :~/ No need to panic, the surgery was a success and I now have a bionic hand. Lol, jk. My hand just stung like a all day, but no permanent damage :~D This is another short chapter, but hopefully one you'll still like. Enjoy!

I’m not entirely certain when it was in my early life that I first discovered that I was attracted to girls. All I remember in any clear form was a feeling of warm serenity flooding my belly when certain girls befriended me, creating in me an alluring desire to gain approval and acceptance. Or perhaps it was because I’ve been dominated by women all myself  life. Take my mother for example. She ruled our household with an iron will, which made the opportunity for meeting and befriending boys in my early years almost a near impossibility.

It wasn’t to say that I didn’t meet boys later on in life. By the time I entered high school, I was well acquainted with many boys my own age. I had even befriended a few, being able to talk ‘shop’ with them about cars, sports, even the occasional discussion about the girls they wanted to date or were actually dating. My guise as a tom-boy made me a natural companion and confidante for many of my male friends, which secretly pleased me. But where romance was concerned, it was virtually a moot point. I had crushes on boys, but it was always a sad and unrequited affair. Whether any boys actually did notice me, I never knew. So to compensate for my lack of experience with boys, I grew infinitely closer towards my female friends and withdrew further into more feminine exploits.

I had my very first encounter with a girl fairly early on, years in advance before I even met Irene and fell for her. I was 15 and it was Biology camp. I was sharing a bungalow with three other girls, my best friend Suhyun and two of my classmates, Dani and Yeri. We ended up playing ‘Spin the Bottle’ in conjunction with ‘Truth or Dare’ on our last night before leaving the next day to go home.

“Aish, can we please stop? My head hurts,” I complained with a drunken giggle.

My cheeks felt so hot from the Soju that Suhyun had stolen off our evil chaperone, Mr. Guk. He was our Maths teacher and looked for any opportunity to flunk us come exam time ever since our freshman year. Since the teachers had passed out in a drunken stupor around the dying embers of the camp fire they’d built hours ago, they probably wouldn’t notice that some of their alcohol was missing from their stash. But just in case, we were planning on returning the empty bottles and cans as soon as we were done, so that the teachers thought they’d drunken it instead of us.

Pretty ingenious, right?

Of course by that point, my brain was too befuddled to care about being clever. My cheeks felt way too hot to be normal and my throat burned like fire every time the transparent liquid swirled through my teeth. All I wanted at that point was to close my eyes and go to sleep.

“Kang Seulgi is such a rookie at drinking,” Dani chortled. Her cheeks were also bright red from consuming Cass Fresh beer.

“Shut it, you! You’re drunker than I am!”

“Yah! Am not!”

“Are too! You didn’t do that last dare right at all.”

“Of course I did! I had to kiss someone, didn’t I? I did that!”

“Uh, unless you meant to rock the door’s world, then you didn’t kiss anyone, Dani.” Suhyun pointed out.

This led to me and her laughing our heads off at Dani’s scowls. Yeri for her part, tried really hard to hide her laughter by covering with her hand. But it was impossible after a while and she couldn’t help laughing along with us. I noticed that her cheeks weren’t that red unlike the three of us. Yeri wasn’t much of a drinker as things usually went, so I’m surprised she even agreed to drink a little with us tonight on a school trip.

Dani glared and snatched the Soju out of my hands, taking a great big swig of the contents. She crunched up her face comically at the bitter, inky taste of the traditional Korean whiskey. “Ok, hotshot. Since all you’ve done is pick ‘Truth’, you have to do a ‘Dare’ now.” She murmured, pointing a finger at me.

“Says who? We’re playing ‘Truth or Dare’, not ‘The King’s Game’.” I retorted, grabbing the Soju back from her.  

“Don’t tell me you’re scared to do a dare, Seulgi.” Suhyun quipped, popping a salty pretzel into .

“Of course I’m not scared.” But deep down, I had a bad feeling about what my friends would make me do for a dare and their own amusement.

“Perfect. Then I propose you do a dare with Yeri.” Dani declared with a pleased smirk on her face.

“Done. What’s the dare?”

“Kiss each other.”

Yeri, who was in the middle of sipping from a can of Chilsung Cider, spat out a mouthful of fizzy soda all over her shirt.

“Aish, jjinja, Yeri? Mrs. Cho is going to kill us for making the floor sticky.” Suhyun complained.

“Mianhe,” Yeri apologised, dabbing haphazardly at her shirt with a napkin.

I stole a glance at the youngest girl in our group of friends, a dozen memories popping into my head. She transferred to our high school a year ago from an elite private school. She was a year younger than everyone in our class, but it was because she’d skipped a grade. Yeri was smart and a nice girl, but that initially rubbed the girls at my school the wrong way.

So when I caught a few of my classmates giving Yeri a hard time and asking her some impertinent questions about her background, I stepped in and came to her defence. Ever since then, I guess I felt responsible for Yeri in a way. Even though we were both pretty introverted, we became good friends soon afterwards. And now Suhyun and Dani were making the poor girl do something incredibly embarrassing.

“Yah! I will happily make out with a door or anyone else in this room. But don’t pick on Yeri and make her do something she doesn’t want-”

“I’ll do it.”  

Being a naturally shy girl, I never thought that Yeri would ever agree to the dare. I guess you can never really know someone intimately until you take them out of their comfort zone and roll the dice.

“Mwuh?” the three of us said in unison as we looked at Yeri.

For her part, Yeri’s face had turned pale, but she looked determined all the same. “I said I’ll do it.”

“Yeri, you don’t need to feel pressured into anything-”

“I know my own mind, Kang Seulgi. Come on, I’m not so bad.” Yeri offered with a twinkle in her eye.

For some reason, that simple gesture stirred something deep in my belly, making my skin feel feverishly hot.

“You heard the girl. Bbaliwo!” Suhyun cried out, getting more eager by the second.

She and Dani leant forward as I scooted closer towards Yeri. My heart hammered away till I felt it was going to explode right out of my chest.

This is no big deal.

We’re all friends.

It’s just one kiss.

“Ready?” I asked of Yeri in a low whisper.

Yeri caught my eye and nodded.

When she didn’t make a move, I decided that I should initiate. I placed a hand gingerly on her skinny shoulder and pulled her closer. I felt a little self-conscious the moment our lips touched because I’m sure my mouth didn’t taste great from all that Soju. But I forgot all about that when Yeri parted her lips ever so slightly and I could taste the sugary sweet taste of Chilsung Cider on her tongue. My mind went deliciously blank as I increased the pressure and got lost in my very first kiss with anyone.

It was over after a few seconds and hadn’t been as strange as I initially thought it would be; in fact, it had been quite pleasant.  

When Yeri and I broke apart, it was hard to look her in the eye afterwards. Even Dani and Suhyun seemed a little quieter as usual.

“Well, this has been fun, but I’m gonna go to bed now!” Dani announced in a seemingly sprightly.

“Yeah, I should uh, return the empty bottles…” Suhyun agreed, rising to her feet as well.

I heard a soft giggle and turned to face Yeri. She was covering , but I could still make out the hint of a smile behind her hand. That made me feel a whole lot better.

We all said goodnight to each other and got into our various beds a good 20 minutes later. But after an hour of tossing and turning, I gave up on sleeping and decided to sit outside on the porch by myself until I became sleepy. I slipped out of the room, thinking that Yeri, Suhyun and Dani were fast asleep while I closed the door softly behind me. Being so far out of the city and in the heart of the countryside, it was a treat to see the stars out in impressive numbers that night. Even the full moon looked brighter than usual, when it wasn’t shunted by obnoxious city smog and noise.

I was so intent on staring up at the sky that I didn’t even hear Yeri come outside and join me till she was standing right in front of me. After apologising profusely for scaring me, Yeri came and sat down quietly next to me while we both looked at the stars. She looked cute in her Kerero sleep shirt and matching shorts; so much so that I pointedly didn’t look at her and kept my eyes focused on the starry sky.

“Can’t sleep?” I asked in a would-be-casual voice.

“Nope. I’m guessing you couldn’t either.”

“Yeah. I guess the countryside air affects my sleeping pattern a little.”

“Look, Seulgi, are we ok after earlier?” When I dared to look at Yeri with a look of confusion, she elaborated further. “You know, our ‘dare’.”

“Oh…that. Don’t worry about it, it was just a silly game. I’m sorry if it made you feel uncomfortable; you know how much Dani and Suhyun like to goof off.”

“It’s ok, I know they didn’t mean any harm. So um…was that the first time you’ve ever kissed a girl?” I gulped down air trapped in my throat as Yeri looked at me with an unwavering gaze. She smiled at my obvious discomfort. “It was, wasn’t it?”

When did Yeri become so bold? It was kind of cool actually.

“Yeah, it was. What about you then?” I demanded in a defensive tone.

But Yeri only looked more amused by my attempts to appear nonchalant. “It was my first time too. But I have kissed a guy before this.”

“Jjinja? What was it like?” I couldn’t help asking.

“Hmm, awkward and sloppy. You were much better.” Yeri answered with simplicity, meeting my gaze once more.

I wasn’t entirely sure, but I couldn’t help thinking that Yeri was flirting with me. It made the saliva dry on my tongue as I contemplated on what to do next.

“Oh um, thanks. I’m glad you liked it.” I offered, clearing my throat awkwardly afterwards.

“I did,” Yeri affirmed. “Wanna do it again?”

I choked on spit when she said that. Heul, has everyone I know gone crazy tonight?

“Kim Yerim! Are you suffering from mental collapse right now?!”

“Anni. It’s just that…I’ve been curious about kissing a girl for the longest time. And now that I’ve experienced it with someone I trust, I kinda want to see what happens next.”

“That’s not a good idea, Yeri.”

“Why not? We’re far away from home and our normal lives. What’s the harm?” Yeri asked me with all the rationality of an intellectual.

Normally, the alarm bells would’ve gone haywire inside my head at this particular juncture. But in the space of a few seconds, I’d somehow made up my mind to ignore all the rules that said this moment in time would change everything in my life that made me who I am. If I can’t live my way just once the way I want to, then what’s the point?

Somewhere in-between pushing her raven black hair out of her face and looking deep into her eyes, both Yeri and I had silently agreed not to make more out of this scenario, that it was a one-time offering, never to be repeated again, something which happened beyond the realm of normal behaviour. Then I leant in towards her and brushed my lips tentatively against hers.

Breakfast was a fairly normal affair the next day; Yeri and I even sat next to each other on the bus ride back home. That one kiss (or several) didn’t change our friendship in the least. In some ways, having that one secret between us made us closer than most of our other peers. I dated a few more guys after that, mostly under casual circumstances. But I never forgot that moment at Biology Camp that subtly tweaked the course of my life.

And now thinking about Yeri came back to haunt me years later when Irene called me up one afternoon and casually invited me to go clubbing with her, Suho, his friend Xiumin, and another female friend of hers named Wendy. By this point, Irene knew that I was bi-ual and I got the distinct impression that she was trying to set me up romantically with Wendy, since she happened to mention that Wendy was gay. Irene also knew that I had a crush on a girl; she just didn’t know that it was her. She admitted to me that part of the reason why she wanted me to meet Wendy was to help me get over this girl that I’d been pining over for God-knows-how-long. And in her coy way of speaking, Wendy had a great personality and was easy on the eye too.

The only reason I actually agreed to go clubbing in the end was because I wanted to see Irene. But I decided to keep an open-mind about Wendy too just in case she turned out to be the girl who helped me forget about my Baechu. But I was gonna need some back-up, so I convinced Joy to switch shifts with one of the other bartenders so that she could come along too. It took some doing, but Joy eventually agreed and we went shopping for some suitable club-wear a few hours beforehand.

Joy and I took a cab out from our apartment through the Holland Tunnel. We were meeting Irene and Suho at ‘The Greenhouse’, an eco-friendly night club that was lit up brighter than the Christmas tree they put outside Macy’s every year. I wasn’t dressed in too girly an outfit, but I did manage to make more of an effort than usual on my appearance. I was wearing dark blue skinny jeans, 4-inch velvet black stilettos, a sparkly sequined silver halter-top which just covered my mid-riff, and a snug black leather jacket that just covered my torso in a way that was still flattering. Though I’ve never been obese, I’ve always been insecure about my weight (no thanks to Mommy-Dearest and what she deemed as ‘constructive criticism’), so it helped that my outfit finally complemented my body in a way that was agreeable to me.

Irene and Suho were already in the queue waiting for the bouncer to let them in when Joy and I finally arrived at Greenhouse. Her whole face seemed to shine with anticipation when she moved towards us and enveloped me in a warm and friendly hug before turning to greet Joy in turn. That left me to learn awkwardly into Suho and plant a quick kiss on his cheek before stepping back really quickly.

“I’m so glad you guys made it!” Irene squealed excitedly, her eyes alight with happiness.

“Yeah, we wouldn’t have missed this for the world. Right, Seulgi?” Joy asked with a knowing glance in my direction.

“Of course not. Thanks for inviting us.” I replied cordially with an appreciative glance at Suho as well. “Where are Xiumin and Wendy?” I inquired curiously after a few seconds of silence.

“They’re already inside, holding a booth for us.” Suho explained.

“Suho, go grease the bouncer so we can get inside. I’m freezing out here.” Irene suggested rapidly, digging her hands deep into her trench coat and hopping around on the spots.

Suho rolled his eyes at Irene’s impatience and moved towards the bouncer. After standing together for close to a minute, Suho came back to us with a grin etched on his face. “And what?” he asked smugly with a gesture towards the club’s main entrance, as if he had come up with the idea of greasing the bouncer all by himself.

I refrained from rolling my eyes while Irene clapped her hands eagerly before entwining hers and Suho’s hands together. Joy grinned slightly before the two of us followed the happy couple into the night club.

It was unlike any other club that I’d ever been inside before. There were lights as far as the eye could see in every corner of the club. And they were of every colour imaginable: reds, pinks, blues, greens and yellows littering the walls and the ceilings. The whole look created an intimate mood all around, complete with woodsy-looking tables and chairs, booths in the corner and its fair share of people strategically positioned in the area, laughing, talking, drinking and dancing. Then Irene waved to two figures seated in a booth in the far corner of the room, shaded in black.

“There they are,” she murmured cheerily as she and Suho began moving forward.

The four of us sauntered through swirls of people in front of us till we reached the booth where Xiumin (whom I remembered from Irene’s birthday dinner a few weeks ago) and a brunette woman about my age sat together.

“Hey, guys!” Irene greeted animatedly.

“You remember Xiumin, right?” Suho asked cordially of me.

“Of course. Nice to see you again” I said with a smile on my face.

Xiumin got up politely from the table and bent forward to kiss Irene on the cheek before doing the same with me and Joy, a friendly grin on his face. Like Kai, he seemed pretty cool, so I didn’t mind hanging out with the guy for a few hours. After Irene had hugged Wendy and pecked her lightly on the cheek, her hand drew abruptly around mine while she steered me towards her friend.

“Wendy, this is Kang Seulgi. Seulgi, I’d like you to meet my friend, Wendy Son.” Irene introduced quickly with a casual wave of her hand between us.

Feeling slightly awkward, I leant forward and shook Wendy’s hand, a little blind-sided by the fact that she was really pretty. She had shoulder-length honey-brown hair, hazel-brown eyes, full cheeks and a lovely smile. I was beginning to figure out why Irene wanted to set me up with her. She was more than easy on the eye; she was easy on pretty much the rest of me too.

“Hi, nice to meet you,” I greeted softly.

“Likewise,” Wendy replied, matching my tone.

I ignored Irene’s Cheshire grin out of the corner of my eye while the six of us took our seats once again. 

“What are you guys drinking?” Irene inquired of Wendy and Xiumin while Suho scanned the crowd for a waiter.

“A beer for me. Cosmo for the lady.” Xiumin answered smoothly while grinning at Wendy.

“Hmm, a Cosmo sounds good. I think I’ll have the same.” Irene concurred pensively while staring at her surroundings.

After signalling to a waiter in close proximity, we all placed our orders with her. Irene ordered a Cosmo, I ordered Smirnoff, Suho ordered a beer and Joy ordered a Long Island Ice Tea. We only waited a few minutes before our drinks arrived, trading casual small-talk in the meanwhile. Greenhouse had three sections:  one section which played just house music, another section which just played hip-hop music and the section we were currently sitting in which was meant for pure relaxation. After the first round, Suho dragged Irene onto the dance floor in the house section. I found myself ordering two more bottles of Smirnoff just to avoid looking at Irene and Suho practically dry-humping on the dance floor together for several songs in a row.

Wendy and Joy excused themselves to go to the bathroom at one point, leaving me and Xiumin alone at the table. I frowned in confusion when he stared at me with an apologetic air about him.

“What?” I asked curiously.

“Look, I’m sorry about what happened at the gym that one time with Suho.”

“What do you mean?”

“Suho’s my bro and a cool guy for the most part. But he gets super competitive around new people; I guess he’s a little threatened by you.”

“Why would he feel that way?”

Xiumin shrugged and took another swig from his bottle of Miller’s. “You’re close to Irene and she talks about you all the time. I guess it makes him feel like he doesn’t know his girl as well as he thought.”

So Irene talks about me a lot, huh?

Jackpot.

“Xiumin, it’s cool. Don’t worry about it.” I cut him off graciously.

“Yeah?” Xiumin asked almost disbelievingly.

“Sure.” I answered truthfully with a genuine smile on my face.

He breathed a sigh of relief and sipped on his beer quietly. His gaze followed mine to Suho and Irene, who were still dancing together. He shook his head slightly before turning to face me again.

“They are so whipped.” Xiumin murmured, chuckling in amusement.

“Totally.” I agreed in a winning tone, even though my heart plummeted just a little at the thought.

Xiumin eyed me steadily for a moment before producing a small plastic bag from his pocket containing some white pills in them.

“What’s that?” I asked curiously.

“Your ticket to having a better time tonight.” Xiumin explained cryptically. Does this guy have a sixth sense about how much it for me seeing Irene and Suho together? “It’s ‘E’,” he offered conspiratorially when I still didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Ecstasy?” I asked in amazement. 

He nodded slowly, a grin spreading across his face.

I’d never taken drugs before in my life, never even bothering to experiment with them when I was a teenager. My friends never pressured me into that kind of thing either, which always brought me a sense of relief. Even with the few house parties I attended during high school, I always found a way to politely decline the odd joint offered to me, much to the incredulity of my peers. And yet, here was Xiumin offering me a much more potent drug with the promise of abandoning my often misguided attempts to not land myself in unnecessarily sticky situations. And for the first time ever, I was seriously considering the alternative to playing it safe.

“If you’re not entirely sure about it, why don’t I start you off with just one pill for the hour and we’ll take it from there? Whaddya say?” Xiumin asked in a tantalising manner, the grin curling cryptically around the edges of his mouth.

“Half.” I countered crisply.

“Huh?” 

“I want half of the pill…for now. If it doesn’t agree with me, then I’ll only suffer through half of the consequences which I’m sure will ensue tonight.”

Xiumin stared at me incredulously like I had just announced that I was heading over to Times Square to hail the arrival of aliens.

“You don’t want a whole pill? What do you expect me to do – cut it in half with a knife?” he demanded incredulously.

“Well, Xiumin, if you have a sweet stash like this, then I’m guessing you know exactly how to…economise.” I offered sweetly with a grin of my own just for effect.

With an impatient eye-roll, Xiumin brought out a utility pocket-knife from his jacket pocket. By using a miniature screw-driver, he managed to create the smallest of incisions in the centre of the white pill which rested atop the wooden table. Then to my satisfaction, he carefully split the pill into two in a neat line before handing one of the halves to me with a grim expression on his face.

“There you go. There’s half…of the consequences.” He remarked with a smirk.

I was still holding half of the ecstasy pill in my palm when Joy and Wendy returned to the table a few seconds later.

“Whatcha got there?” Joy asked both curiously and suspiciously of me.

“Oh, just a little something to get the party going,” I answered cryptically, closing my palm around the pill.

“Sweet. You got any more where that came from, Shoe?” Wendy asked eagerly.

Xiumin promptly took out his plastic bag of pills and handed Wendy a single pill, probably happy that she didn’t ask for half either. Joy declined the offer and satisfied herself by sipping serenely on a vodka and cranberry juice. Xiumin got up from the table and politely extended his hand towards Joy.

“Wanna hit the dance floor?” he asked smoothly.

Joy eyed him momentarily before answering. “Sure,” she agreed heartily before taking his hand and allowing him to lead her onto the crowded dance floor in the hip-hop section.

Wendy and I watched them wordlessly for a few seconds before she turned to me and launched into an impromptu conversation.

“So what do you do, Seulgi?” she asked with an engaging smile on her face.

I took the bait and answered her subsequent questions in what I hoped was a casual manner which sounded engaging and interested. Wendy in turn told me she worked as a receptionist at a law firm with lots of wild hand gestures. I soon discovered that she wasn’t shy about talking, which I kinda liked. She was friendly and extroverted in a way that wasn’t too intimidating. Every now and then, I found myself inadvertently staring in Irene and Suho’s direction, feeling that distinct pang of restless misery that just wouldn’t let me be. Even Joy and Xiumin looked perfectly content dancing together, which made me feel even more alone to myself.

And then somewhere in-between listening to Wendy talk about her job and listening to the music playing overhead in the distance, a sudden bout of recklessness swiftly came over me. I could hear “Can’t Feel My Face” by The Weeknd playing in the hip-hop section of the club, which was a recent favourite song of mine. The catchy intro (which had been lengthened by the DJ in the booth) was practically calling out to me, making me unconsciously tap my foot in time to the beat. Then my body went into auto-pilot mode as I swallowed half of the ecstasy pill in my hand, got to my feet and sauntered onto the dance floor, leaving Wendy sitting at the table.

At first, my attempts at dancing were awkward and uncoordinated, which drew a few stares from others club patrons in close proximity. Then I started turning around on the spot to give myself more room and began feeling the effects of the Ecstasy kicking in. It was subtle at first, a casual blurring of my eyes while they tried to focus on their surroundings. And then I felt it in my ears too, a strange muffling of the song blaring through the speakers, which ironically made it sound even louder to me. Suddenly I didn’t care anymore about anything or anyone around me, content only to move in time to the music, my hips gyrating in a loose circle. Then I raised my hands in the air and surrendered myself completely to the music and its alluring power. The lights from the disco ball were glittering blindingly against my corneas, swarming around me like multi-coloured bees poised to strike.

Then I caught sight of Wendy moving towards me, a dimpled smile on her face. My lips parted into an easy smile when she came to dance with me, her movements far more practised and graceful than mine. I didn’t mind that there was very little distance between us while we moved together amidst the other dancers. I liked it even better when Wendy slipped her hands around my waist and made our bodies sway swelteringly close together. Somewhere during my partially delirious state, Irene caught my eye from a few paces and smiled softly at me, obviously pleased with the direction that my night in particular had taken.

Joy and Xiumin had also ventured into the house section too, throwing me and Wendy comical looks during intervals when they thought we weren’t looking. Wendy and I ended up dancing together for a few more songs afterwards when the other four had already gone back to our table. The music was beginning to fade into the background while I concentrated on Wendy, those alluring eyes of hers swimming over my skin like drops of water. When the two of us returned to the table, the fog in my head caused by the pill had cleared somewhat and I felt more like myself again. But I was still buzzing from the vibe on the dance floor, which I took as a good sign that my mood was subtly lifting.

“Nice work. You guys really cut up a rug out there.” Xiumin praised with just a hint of leering in his tone.

“Well, Wendy gets all the credit. I just did what came naturally to me, however uncoordinated the outcome was.” I joked feebly.

“It wasn’t too bad from what I saw.” Wendy countered kindly.

“You’re just being nice. Flattery will get you far with me.” I returned cleverly.

“Noted.” Wendy remarked gently, her eyes boring into me.

“All that dancing has gotten me hot and bothered. How ‘bout another round of drinks?” Irene offered courteously, cutting discreetly into the conversation.

We all agreed and shared another round of drinks together. Then after another round of dancing close to 2am, Wendy announced that she needed to head home since she had to go to work in a few hours time.

“Are you gonna catch a cab?” I asked curiously of her.

“Nah, I live a few blocks from here. I’m just gonna take a walk.” Wendy responded nonchalantly.

“Yeah, but is it safe? Maybe you shouldn’t walk by yourself.” I noted in concern.

“Are you offering to walk with me?” Wendy asked in a playful manner.

I choked on spit, which had been gathering in my throat this entire time. A part of me felt like pulling back at Wendy’s less than obvious attempt to throw me off balance. But I was also curious at the same time, unconsciously drawn to her charming appeal. I looked over to Joy, as if silently asking for her permission.

“Go ahead. I’m just gonna catch a cab,” Joy offered diplomatically.

“Are you sure?” I asked anxiously.

“Of course, I’ll see you at home.” Joy replied graciously, giving me a small smile.

I thanked her before turning to Suho and Xiumin to greet them each in turn, thanking them for inviting me to go clubbing with them. Irene stepped towards me last and engulfed me in a warm hug that almost made me rethink my decision to go with Wendy. At least until she said:

“I hope Suho’s tidied up his room, I could fall asleep on my feet right now.” Irene admitted with a tired yawn.

“Oh…you’re sleeping over at Suho’s tonight?” I asked hoarsely.

“I always do after we hit a club together.” Irene offered casually, which sent tremors of pain shooting through my chest. We’d barely spent any time together tonight and she was still breaking my heart in two somehow. “What do you think of Wendy?”

My gaze flitted over Irene’s shoulder to where Wendy and Joy stood together, talking animatedly while the latter waited for a taxi. She wasn’t my Baechu, but I couldn’t deny that we had some sizzling chemistry together on the dance floor earlier. She was fun and pretty and Irene was going home with her boyfriend anyway – why shouldn’t I live a little too?

“She’s cool,” I answered truthfully.

Irene smiled, but it struck me as being a little pensive. And then she was hugging me tightly once more. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she advised me with a mischievous wink.

She blew me a kiss and hooked her arm through Suho’s as the two of them walked in the direction of the subway. Xiumin waved to me before sauntering over to where Joy stood. Wendy came towards me, biting her lip in a decidedly sensual way.

“Are you ready to go?” she asked, her tone breathless and tantalising.

I my lips, the cool night air and the look in Wendy’s eye making me tremble all over.

“Definitely. Let’s go.”

Then it was just me and Wendy, leaving the club together, walking past a stream of party-goers still queuing to get inside Greenhouse.

So I think it's safe to say that Seulgi will probably end up kissing most of Red Velvet in this story ;~D The Dani from Seulgi's flashback is Dani from T-Ara and that Suhyun is Suhyun from Akdong Musician. Chilsung Cider is a Korean version of Sprite and 7-Up in case anyone was wondering. Anyone else jamming to 'Can't Feel My Face' too these days? It is absurdly catchy while being sad and disturbing at the same time. Next chapter will have more of Seulgi and Wendy doing 'fun things' :~P I'd better get some shut-eye, my new bed's being delivered in the morning. Stay healthy and high, pip pip cheerio!