“So, did she agree?”

Seulgi pressed the phone a little closer to her ear, settling on the padded chair outside of Irene’s room with admittedly, more anxiousness than she wanted to have. Her other hand clamped against as her teeth chewed on its nails nervously.

“She did.” Seungwan’s answer soothed away all her worries, and she sagged against her chair with huge relief.

“Thank god. Thank you, Seungwan. Thank you so much. You have no idea how happy I am to hear this.”

“Me too, silly.” Seungwan laughed quietly, her voice still somewhat subdued. “You don’t have to thank me. She is my sister. I will do anything I can to help her. Mom won’t be able to meddle with her life anymore once the switch of legal guardianship is official.”

Seulgi hummed her response, a wholehearted smile finally gracing her face after what felt like forever. “Thank you, still. You have done so much to help. I haven’t seen any of the aggressive news witch-hunting her again too.”

Seungwan appeared to be quiet for a while at the mention. When she spoke again, her tone was somber. “You do realize that the police are still looking for her, right? Unlike the media, they can’t be completely bought. The family of the deceased are still angry. They demand a legal act. In Joohyun unnie’s case, they want her to be found and to be locked in asylum because she’s considered a threat for public. Some people have come up as witnesses stating that they spotted a girl matching her features the night after the crash. I supposed it was before Yura picked her up.”

Seulgi’s smile drooped again with her shoulders. “I know…I know I have no choice but to take her back one of these days too, but I just – I want to give her some more time.”

“I understand.” Seungwan muttered, seemingly just as reluctant as her to return Irene to the hospital. “Take your time. Don’t worry. I will try to fend them off for as long as I can. After all, what’s the use of all this filthy corporate money, right?”

There was a laughter on the phone meant to brush off the question as a joke, but Seulgi could pick out the bitterness from it even without seeing her best friend’s face.

“Seungwan, I’m sorry. All of this must be tough on you too.”

The slow laughter stopped, and in the wake of it, emerged the painful truth. “It is, but it’s nothing compared to what Joohyun unnie has gone through. It’s hard living with mom knowing what kind of person she really is but I promise her I will give her a chance if she stops bothering unnie’s life. She’s doing her part, so I am doing mine.”

Seulgi nodded, even though Seungwan could not see her.

“Hey, Seul?” The girl sounded nervous, almost as if she was uncertain. “Will you tell Joohyun unnie that when she’s ready I would really like to meet her?”

Seulgi nodded again, a small smile on her face. “Of course. I’ll tell her one of these days.”

“Thanks. I guess that’s all then.” Seungwan was about to hang up the call, when Seulgi stopped her before she could. “Hey, Wan.”

“Yeah?”

“You are an amazing person. You are doing really great.”

There was a beat of silence, and then Seulgi thought she heard a sniff.

“Don’t cry.” She laughed.

“Shut up.” Seungwan brushed her off and sniffed some more, trying to suppress her own growing laughter. “I’m hanging up, bye.”

----------------------------------------------------------------

If there was one thing more frustrating than trying to eat in an arm cast, Seulgi thought, it must be trying to put on clothes in an arm cast.

She glanced at the clock on the wall, noting that it had been an hour since Irene vanished behind the bathroom door.

“Hey, are you drowning in there? I am starting to worry over here.” She joked. She knew that Irene had stopped struggling with water because the shower had been turned off a while ago. She must be struggling with her shirt now, as always.

“Urgh.” A muffled groan escaped from the bathroom, sounding a little concerning. “I am stuck.”

“Stuck?” Seulgi parroted, not quite catching what her girlfriend meant. “You mean stuck in the shower?”

“No, silly. In my sweater.” Irene couldn’t help but laugh despite her predicament. “God, you can be so nonsensical sometimes. Although, I’m sure I’m just as silly at the moment. I can’t get my head and my arm out of this thing somehow. Urgh.”

Seulgi giggled. “Want some help?”

“No. I can do this on my own. This is just a – sweater!” Another series of angry wrestling noises with an innocent piece of textile commenced and then a defeated sigh followed. “Fine. I give up. Come and help me, please.”

Seulgi rose from her couch with a triumphant grin. “Told you so.”

She turned the doorknob and pulled the bathroom door open, being rewarded with a sight so ridiculous she had to stop and stare in awe.

“Don’t laugh.”

The threat could be more menacing if the girl saying it wasn’t in a position where her head lodged in the sweater’s armhole and her casted forearm stuck out partially from the collar.

Seulgi was highly impressed.

“How exactly did you…get in this situation?”

“I had better moments.” Irene sighed shamefully. “I might have used a tad more force than necessary. Hence, the mess.”

“We really should work on that patience.” Seulgi cackled, sauntering forward to pull the oversized sweater here and there until it fit her feisty girlfriend in all the right places.

“There.” She placed a quick kiss on Irene’s nose when she was done, pinching soft cheek with starry gaze full of affection. “Feisty even while sick, you.”

Irene looked up at her with a tiny grin and went up on her toes to peck her lips.

“Hmm.” Seulgi hummed in appreciation at the feel of warm lips, the innocent peck gradually turning into a deeper kiss as Irene’s good hand s up to pull her down by nape.

“Ouch.” The shorter girl winced and pulled back abruptly, frowning at her injured forearm that had been squished while they were pressing all over each other.

“Oh, crap. I’m so sorry.” Seulgi looked horrified.

Irene laughed. “It’s okay. It’s no big deal.”

“No, no. It is.” Seulgi frowned and took a few steps backward, shaking her head at herself. “I am here to help you get healthier, not to make you sicker.”

Irene tilted her head and smiled. “It’s not even that bad. It’s been in cast for three weeks. The worst of the fracture has probably healed.”

“No, that is not true. I am the soon to be doctor here so I know. We shouldn’t kiss anymore until we take off that cast in three more weeks.”

Irene rose her eyebrows. “You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, I so can.”

“Really?” The older girl drawled, head lolling to one side to assess Seulgi with barely hidden challenge. “You sure you can?”

“Do not underestimate my will power, Miss Bae.”

Irene laughed and stepped closer. Seulgi flinched in response. “And do not intentionally seduce me too. That is a breach of law.”

Irene chuckled at her antics, shaking her head and walking away. “Alright, silly. But since we can’t engage in anything not platonic here due to your law, can we go outside for a walk?”

Seulgi blinked at her, feeling completely surprised but at the same time, happy. “You want to go outside?”

“Yeah.” Irene’s voice turned small as she picked at the long sleeves of her sweater. She peeked up at Seulgi. “Will that be okay? I want to…see things. I feel like I’ve been holed up in this room for too long. Just inside this building, I promise, we don’t have to go out. People won’t see me, I can wear a mask. I just want to see the garden –”

Her nervous rambling was cut off by Seulgi throwing herself against her and engulfing her in a super excited, warm hug. “Yes! Absolutely! I will get you the wheelchair and we will do whatever it is you want to do outside. Anything. Wait for me here.”

“What? A wheelchair? But it’s my arm that’s –” Irene called out but to nothing, because Seulgi had sprinted outside with the enthusiasm of a student hearing a dismissal bell.

She shook her head with a fond smile, wincing again a second later when she felt the pain in her forearm.

Seulgi had just unintentionally squished it again when she had hugged her earlier.

Irene laughed.

-------------------------------------------------------------

If Irene wanted to do anything with the outside world again, then Seulgi would make sure to pave the ground herself if she needed to.

She hummed a cheerful melody as she pushed the wheelchair, feeling more than happy that the older girl finally seemed to gain back her old self bit by bit. Things that she used to like – flowers, little critters, sky – seemed to catch her attention again after a worrying, dark period of indifference in which nothing seemed to matter to her.

“I still think this is an exaggeration.” Irene protested behind her clinic-issued mask, sitting on the wheelchair begrudgingly as Seulgi pushed her around the mid-sized garden.

“Taeyeon sunbae said you shouldn’t move too much to avoid re-bleeding in your brain.”

“It’s been three weeks since I received treatment, Seulgi. The last CT-scan showed that most of the bleeding has been reabsorbed.”

“Shush. I am the –”

“Soon to be doctor, yeah.” Irene pretended to roll her eyes. A smile pulled at her lips behind the mask though.

It was warming, Seulgi’s concern for her health.

“Speaking about that, how is the matter with your – umm school? Are they going to expel you?”

Seulgi swooped in before Irene could appear more distressed and guilty about her academic halt. “I have told them that I wish to take one semester break. I will need to redo neurology when I come back but that’s it. There is no irreversible damage.”

Irene didn’t say anything back, but she seemed to be lost in her internal self-blame.

“Hey, it’s okay, really. I needed a temporary break anyway. I was getting really sick of studying.” Seulgi laughed to lighten the mood. “Besides, it will be better if I come back all fresh and ready to tackle the devil of medical school than to force myself going with it half alive.”

Irene didn’t seem to be fully convinced with her partial excuses, but she gave a slight nod of agreement at the end.

“Do you really hate it? The study to be a doctor?”

“Um, yeah? You know music and art have always been my thing. Skills for those seem to come easy to me and I enjoy doing them. I’m only so-so at medical study. Although, I admit psychiatry turns to be a pretty interesting discipline once I dig deeper.”

Irene looked up at her from the wheelchair, eyes squinting slightly which Seulgi knew was less because of the sunlight and more because of the smile behind her mask.

“That sounds terribly biased for a wholly different reason.”

“Are you implying that I like it because of you?” Seulgi teased, smirking as she kept pushing the wheelchair across the garden. Rows of petunias and azaleas bloomed on either side of the small pathway, forming short, radiant walls of white, yellow, and purple swaying gently in the dance of the Spring wind.

“Maybe.” Irene reached out, dragging her fingers languidly against the bright, colorful petals. “So pretty.” She mumbled to herself.

You are, Seulgi thought but kept to herself. She gave Irene a chance to bask in the little goodness undisturbed, watching her stare at the blossoms and gazing up at the clear blue sky with blissful smile.

“What do you think you will pursue if you are given the chance to – switch lanes?” Irene asked again after taking her time to breathe in the fresh, open air.

“Uh – surprisingly, I don’t think I want to switch lanes now. I am already on my last year of medical school after years of suffering so I think I will just push through a little more. I figure I will just find a specialization that I like best. I can still do music and art along the way without dramatically ripping my white coat off.”

Irene gave a gentle laugh and turned around on her seat, prompting Seulgi to bring the wheelchair to a halt.

“You are serious about liking psychiatry?”

“I am. I mean, I would lie if I said the first thing that sparked my interest in reading its textbooks wasn’t you, but after actually getting into it, I sincerely think it is an interesting study. It is less – I don’t know, methodological and impersonal – compared to the other fields. You have to form connection and understanding with your patients. You don’t just check their labs, write them a prescription and send them off.”

Irene stared at her for long time, looking like she was assessing whether Seulgi really meant what she said. “So, you want to take a residency on it and be a psychiatrist?”

Seulgi blew out a breath, squaring her shoulders. “Yeah. I think it’s still a very much needed profession too. Besides, surgery, obstetrics, and many other specializations have crazy work hours. I don’t want to have loads of money but being unable to come home to you every night.”

At the end of her sentence Seulgi gasped and slapped a hand to , her eyes widening at her own slipup. The full meaning behind the sentence hit them both with a start. Irene’s mouth opened but her words seemed to flee too.

“Home?” She managed to rasp at the end, her voice sounding thick at the back of . “To me? Every night?”

Seulgi’s cheeks set aflame and they felt so hot she could practically melt.

Her head dipped shyly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to – um, be presumptuous – I just – ah, you know. I didn’t mean to imply that we should marr – oh, oh! But I also didn’t mean that I don’t want to marry y – oh god, what the hell, I mean –”

“Seulgi.”

Seulgi lifted her gaze from her shoes to Irene, finding bright hazel eyes swirling at her with mix of emotions so rich it was impossible to describe with words.

“Come down here.” Irene pulled down her mask and motioned Seulgi to bend down.

Mind still reeling, Seulgi followed without much thinking. She was rewarded with a soft hand touching her cheek and an even softer pair of lips touching her own.

“I love you.” Irene pulled back and stared at her with those intense, bottomless eyes that seemed to consume all of her soul. “Just the thought of that already means so much to me, thank you.”

Seulgi frowned and folded her arms, not entirely happy with the way Irene spoke of it as if it was just an idea that popped up on her mind randomly without a real intention to actualize.

“It’s not just a stray idea.” She muttered, looking down on her shoes again and kicking the gravel with frustration because even though she really wanted to, she had no idea how to make it happen. Irene wasn’t exactly wrong.

“I know it isn’t.” Irene’s