February, 2010

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“I can’t believe we are carrying this all the way to your home.” Seulgi muttered at one embarrassing afternoon, lowering her face from the weird looks the pedestrians were giving her and her best friend.

The latter only huffed in argument.

“Whose genius idea is it to give me a teddy bear twice my size at school?” Seungwan quipped and nearly slipped off the road, struggling to keep the enormous plush in her arms steady as they carried it together side by side.

“I thought you were going to get picked up by your driver as usual!" Seulgi whined in defense. “Who knew that he would pick his boss' birthday as the day of his sick leave?”

Seungwan grinned, eyes alight with mischief at her grumbling friend. She swept her gaze over the brown teddy bear in their arms and her smile grew even wider.

They looked similar somehow, Seulgi and the bear. Fluffy, squishy. Cute.

Very cute.

“How did you hide this thing at school actually? It’s humongous.” Seungwan mused.

“Well, I came to school early at dawn when nobody was around and I hid it in the old warehouse. Surprised, aren’t you?”

Seungwan snorted as her answer.

“What?” Seulgi panned.

“Oh, nothing. Just the image of you piggybacking a giant teddy bear alone to school at 5 AM being very...funny.” Seungwan tried not to laugh really, but she ended up cackling anyway at her friend's silly attempt. “Sorry.”

“You are lucky I like you.” Seulgi grumbled, and then blushed a moment later when she realized what she said.

Luckily, Seungwan didn’t seem to notice as she stomped in front of a huge mansion, grand and luxurious in all its glory, and announced, “We are here.”

She muttered something in english to the video intercom plastered on the wall and not long after that, an old woman in maid uniform came out to welcome them inside.

Seulgi thought her jaw was never going back to its place as she was sure hung open the entire walk into the mansion.

She knew Seungwan was rich, but she didn’t know that she was a freaking billionaire. The blonde always acted so humbly that it never showed.

“Your bedroom is bigger than my entire house, this is sad.” Seulgi muttered in a mix of awe and devastation. “Wow.”

“Make yourself at home!” Seungwan placed the enormous teddy bear on her huge pink bed and waltzed out of the room to grab some snacks from the kitchen.

Seulgi shifted her eyes around her white and pink surroundings with daze.

Seungwan had a lot of books on the shelves. They were mostly written in english so Seulgi skipped them almost as if she had an allergy.

She found some music sheets laying around on a white study desk beside a familiar guitar. Some photos were lined up on top of the wooden furniture. Seulgi smiled as she saw Seungwan’s childhood photos from when she won singing contests in Canada. The other frames were photos with her mom and dad, and then a particular photo caught Seulgi’s attention.

It was a picture of Seungwan not older than 9 years old, standing side by side with another girl perhaps a few years older than her.

It looked rather odd actually. Seungwan was smiling brightly but the other girl was completely void of smile, her eyes piercing unspoken amount of fury and sadness (?) that not any children on her age should be capable of constructing.

Seulgi wasn’t sure if she got it right, but the little girl had startling bright hazel eyes that made her look contrastingly different to Seungwan whose eyes were colored dark. They didn’t look the slightest bit similar.

“Dip in the snacks!” Seungwan popped up with a huge grin and dozens of tooth-decaying sweets in her arms. “My mom isn’t home yet so you can roll around all you want.”

“Is this your friend?” Seulgi asked, pointing at the particular picture she was staring at curiously.

“Oh, no.” Seungwan laughed, but it was a rather nervous laughter. “That’s my sister, actually. Stepsister, to be exact.”

“Oh, that explains it.” Seulgi lowered to join Seungwan sitting on the carpeted floor. “You guys don’t really look similar.”

“Do we?” Seungwan scrunched her nose with a good natured smile. “She is pretty, isn’t she? Grumpy and all, but pretty.”

“Pretty yeah, but I didn’t know someone could look angrier than me in childhood photos.” Seulgi joked, picking up a chocolate and plopping it into . “Where is she now, by the way? You never talked about her.”

It was strange, Seulgi thought. Seungwan usually talked to her about anything.

Seungwan looked like she was struggling for words, fidgeting with the chocolate bar in her hands unlike her usual, happy self. “Well, she kind of...left us after dad passed away three years after marrying my mom. I guessed she disliked mom and me intensely.”

The atmosphere took a gloomy turn, so Seulgi decided to awkwardly shove a cupcake into Seungwan’s mouth to stop her from brooding. She hated the sight of it. Her foolish resort proved to be successful, however, as Seungwan yelped and slapped her on the arm when the cream smeared all over her face.

“Hey!”

Seulgi giggled as Seungwan tackled her to the carpeted floor and started tickling her sides mercilessly.

“Stop!” She cried out, wriggling under Seungwan like a pathetic earth worm.

Seungwan, gleeful with the rare upper hand she was getting, kept launching ticklish attack to the chocolate haired girl below her until Seulgi couldn’t take it anymore and flipped her smaller form easily to the side.

They rolled with laughter, positions switched, and Seulgi had both of Seungwan’s hands pinned on the floor beside her head. Their breaths raced from the childish stunt they pulled and Seungwan broke into delighted laugh.

It was crisp and tinkling like a wind chime.

Seulgi stared at the chestnut eyes below hers, heart fluttering and stomach flipping with all sorts of butterflies as they pressed so close against each other.

Her heart soared, and she dragged her eyes down to the pink pair of lips below the soft nose when suddenly someone called for the blonde.

“Wendy, dear, are you home?”

Seungwan gasped. In a split second they tore themselves away from each other and scrambled to their feet.

“Wendy, are you here?” A woman in her late thirties, garbed in elegant black office suit and matching black shades, opened the door and stared at...nothing.

Right, Seungwan told her that her mom lost her sight a few years ago.

“Y-yes, mom.” Seungwan stammered, running over to give the woman a hug. “I’m with a...a friend.” She sounded unusually nervous and weirdly, hesitant.

“Oh, hello there.” The elderly woman smiled but it missed Seulgi to hit the wall behind her. “Please make yourself at home. It’s been long since Wendy has someone to play with. I was just checking if she had arrived. Please, have fun.”

The woman turned to go but Seungwan clung to her arm. “M-mom, let me help you go to your room.” She flashed one last glance at Seulgi before exiting the room, and Seulgi was surprised to find that the blond’s cheeks were the same color as hers. Red.

Did she feel the same weird butterflies too earlier?

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November, 2015 - Present

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“Kang Seulgi, pay attention to the lesson or just take your bag and get the hell out of my class.” Cold voice zapped through the room and Seulgi snapped from her sleep blearily, eyes red and head swimming.

Krystal Jung, the head doctor of the Psychiatric Department and their mentor for the next three months, daggered her one bone-chilling glare.

Seulgi wiped at her eyes with one hand, straightening her back and trying to sit properly but falling back to her slackened form not long after as her legs stretched lazily under the desk.

Taeyeon wasn’t joking when she said that the head doctor in Psychiatric Department was pretty, but she was obviously joking when she said that they were going to love her. Krystal Jung was as murderous as her looks.

“So, like what I said earlier, there are two major types of patients here. The neurotic ones are those who suffer from anxiety or depression, while the psychotic ones are those who lose touch with reality and often suffer from hallucinations or strong delusions.” Krystal rounded her table with a stick in her hand, talking as if the six interns were elementary students and not soon-to-be physicians.

“Be careful of the psychotic ones because some of them can have optical or auditory hallucinations severe enough to make them cause unintentional havoc.” Krystal reminded. “However, as long as their antipsychotic drugs are given properly and their psychosocial therapies are running well, they are usually calm and well, quite normal. You will be surprised at how many schizophrenic patients are conversational and probably, smarter than you.”

The interns laughed softly among themselves as if it was just a joke, but one finger wave from Krystal and they all shut up again.

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