"Are those your friends we saw back in your room?“ Hansol asks, pushing his brown hair highlighted with stripes of blond amidst it all.

Mingyu can’t believe what just happened. "Yeah, except the one beside Seokmin,” Hansol just mentioned the photograph he hung on his wall of his elemetary school's graduation day. They begin to walk again, and he was astonished to see the whole cosmic children in one piece. It’s strange, how Hansol and Jisoo don’t mention the fact that Soojung and her cousin spoke in a language they are familiar with

Before Soojung told him about Ten, he felt a sudden crawl of irritation in the back of his skin. It’s a closeness Mingyu has never seen before; her sweet voice coated in fondness directed at Ten. Despite how sullen and murky her cousin looked, Soojung had looked at him as if he was the most precious thing.

When she told him about Ten, he realised how similar their smiles were. He hopes that nobody noticed how sour his face looked before.

“Wow, Seulgi changed so much, I swear. I’d never have thought that the blond girl we’ve all been talking about to be her!” Jisoo begins, his black hair newly trimmed from a week ago into a crew cut. “-can’t believe she didn’t remember me, though. We competed a lot back then-”

“Perhaps, it was because you beat her into first place at that time, Jisoo,” Mingyu continues and somehow that sends Jisoo into silence. Why would Seulgi want to remember the one who beat her up? If it was him, he’d do the same thing as her.

He doesn’t want to look at Seungcheol after seeing Seungwan’s face. He still feels some sort of regret since he played a part in making them come true. Messages and night calls of Seungcheol asking him things related to her: How is Seungwan like? What are her hobbies? What kind of things does she like?

Would she laugh at my jokes?

She would laugh at everything you say, she’s kinder than you think.

Would she mind if I ask her to walk home with me?

You should believe in her. 

Would she accept me, Mingyu?

You have to believe in yourself for that one.

Seungcheol was so starstrucked by everything that was Seungwan, and Mingyu was baffled beyond words when Jisoo told him he broke up with her.

He ignored Seungcheol for the whole day yet Seungwan greeted him like the usual. He didn’t dare to mention anything about him.

“Is her name Soojung? The one on Seokmin’s back?” Nayoung looks up to him in curiosity and really, Nayoung’s response of Soojung is so different from Nayeon.

“Yeah, she is Soojung,” Soojung snuggling to Seokmin’s shoulders seem odd. She seems so small being carried that way. Like a creature from another world, looking up at him in a strange light emanating from her eyes.

“She looks very.…enthralling,” Mingyu gazes strangely at the girl beside him. He has known for a while that she is particularly more attracted to girls than boys, but she is showing it way too much right now.

“Ugh, out of all the girls you’re attracted to, it just have to be her!” Nayeon complains, puffing out her cheeks in frustration. “She’s arrogant.”

Mingyu doesn’t realise that his eyebrows are knitted as he turns to her. “Soojung is far from arrogant, you just got on her bad side.”

A raised eyebrow appear on Nayeon’s white porcelain face as they walk and the cinema has come to their sight. “It’s the first time I hear you defending someone. Interesting.” 

He stares up ahead and pushes his hair back, unaffected by her words, eyes unreadable and calm. “Because it’s the truth. Everyone who have known Soojung would think the same.”

Mingyu can feel eyes boring to his head. It’s as if they all notice the sudden change in him when Soojung flourished out of nowhere into his life again.

"You know, Nayoung'll get over her soon. Remember when she said that Seungwa-Yeri! Remember when she said that Yeri was dainty?" Hansol recovers at the wrong time, and Seungcheol avoids any form of eye contact. It sounds like a terrible attempt since Nayoung never mentioned Yeri.

Jisoo nudges Hansol hard in the ribs, motioning to the guy beside him who was all silence all this time. "Sorry, man."

"No need to mention it," Seungcheol assures, even though his eyes are casted down tot he pavement.

Mingyu doesn't want to bring up Seungwan ever again to Seungcheol, it's enough. And he also thinks his friends should stop whispering behind his back of their wishes for him and Nayeon. Everything between Nayeon and him was never real. 

Their group of loud and reckless-minded teens walk in silence for awhile, a little bit unused of Mingyu’s new side that they just discovered.

“C'mon, let’s just watch the movie. What’s with this serious mood?” when they arrive in the front of the cinema, they scatter apart; Nayeon and Nayoung buying the popcorns while Hansol is off seeing the movie’s posters, Jisoo has disappeared to the restroom.

He is left with Seungcheol, who slings an arm to his shoulders. It's as if he just chose to ignore all the things that happened today. “Just take it slow, man. Nayeon just said what she wanted to say.” Deer-like, sparkling eyes and jet black locks faces him. He shakes away any thoughts of dislike from his mind.

Mingyu looks at the shorter guy for a moment and sighs. “She should stop being so prejudiced about everything.”

“She’s always been like that, but it’s the first time you speak out about it.”

Mingyu suddenly wants to go home, knock on Soojung’s window and tell her the reason she made him upset. And go to Wonwoo’s house and play soccer games with him even though he is no longer as good as he used to be, and apologise to Seungwan that her heart was broken because of him and grab Seulgi by the arm and asked her what kind of a disaster she went through to wound up like that. He also wants to rekindle the friendship between him and Seokmin.

Those thoughts soon get drowned out by his friends now crowding him and pulling him inside of the theatre, as flashes of images flicker inside of his mind, of eyes staring at them in awe and admiration for the all-rounded perfection they all seem to be in front of the students. Glory, huh? Mingyu is obsessed with that these days. Being on top sounds similar to that word, that's why he keeps his fingers tight around this group of his.

Mingyu enjoys his age of glory and he enjoys it all too much to reach for his old friends, once again.

Æ

“Seungwan, come to my house this Friday. I need to talk to you.”

Seulgi remembers saying that last Wednesday.

Wonwoo told her that him and the boys will be off to the arcade that day and Seokmin is meant to show them the many places in the town. It’s more like boys night out for them, and Seulgi found the perfect chance to confront Seungwan. Soojung is bedridden since there is a fracture in her leg and her mother admonished her to stay in the house. 

Kang Seulgi wants to know what actually happened when they were not around. She wants to know what she will be facing in high school.

This is the problem of living in a small town; it will be easy to bump into the people you know: the people you like or hate. And most people go to high schools that their close friends attend also. People tend to stick even tighter with their friends as they grow older since people grow even more crueler by the day, and trust is easier to be lost with how people stick to those who give them the most benefits.

She has nothing to lose and nothing to gain out of the cliques in that high school, she thinks people shouldn’t be put into such groups at all even. Now, with the people she treasures here by her side, Seulgi feels invincible.

Studying dilligently will be her top priority here and aside of that, she will try to tone down her hostile self. Tone down is the word since she doesn’t intend to lose that side.

Sometimes, by having some protective walls, it will be easier to filter the bad out of the good. Appearing tough and rough around the edges she has to admit, give her lots of benefits. Despite how this admittance show how destroyed and glitched she turned out to be, it always feels thrilling when people appear to be intimidated by her.

The stream of blood rush faster in her veins and she can feel her bones crack and snap. She can almost feel the demons’s screechy and scratchy cackles inside of her head; grating and plucking her skullhead while laughing with her and not at her. Being stunned becomes a literal word as a rouse of electricity zaps and wrecks her inside out. On all honesty, this process will only make sense to herself and not other people. 

Sometimes, Seulgi wonder amongst drawing stick figures in the air while drowning herself, if people ever feel pain as riveting as she was. It began as excruciatingly painful, (slamming her teeth to the table sounded like a better option) to maddeningly painful as she could feel herself losing her senses of feelings and grip on reality; the ing truth and the supposed realm she lived in. Then it went on to something bearable, something she didn’t mind having to suffer everyday. 

Seulgi wouldn’t mind getting killed over and over again, she’s lived long enough to have death as a better option than life itself. 

What a grotesque yet heroic mind Seulgi has; ready to die for her friends any day any time, taking measures to the extremes despite having nightly creatures constantly ticking and counting the time they need to loom and rule over her.

Everything still seems like a dream for her, believe it or not. To be here and belong, not writhing in pain, wishing to escape. The current reality seems so surreal.

“Seulgi?”

“Just come in, Seungwan.”

“But-”

“There is nothing to hide. We’re both girls.”

Seungwan comes in the afternoon, as she is having a bath, almost drowning as always. Her voice pulls her into reality, and she tilts her head to the door when it creaks open into a small gap. An eye peeks inside, wide and embarrassed and Seungwan.

“You can just sit there. I’m not asking you to come and join me,” she motions her head to the toilet seat in front of her. The sink is on her right and the bathtub and the sink faces each other fearlessly, two sides in the same length and obviously longer than the other two. Her back is facing the door side while her nose points to the small hexagonal window close to the ceilings. Entering her bathroom is like walking in a tight-spaced tunnel, only that her bathroom is medium sized and it’s in the colour of broken white.

A little blood shredded from her skin, and it would look like a room sent straight out of a crime-scene of a suicide , crammed by rules and boundaries. Everything about her bathroom feels so raw that she feels so relaxed spending her time here.

Perhaps, it will affect Seungwan to open the Pandora’s box to her.

She pushes the door slowly, eyes thrown away from Seulgi’s skin soaked in water. Perhaps mixed with her own tears and shambles of her broken soul, holding in the tub from swallowing the void inside her. Seulgi doesn’t find anything in crying her eyes out anymore, so she stopped at that time she broke in front of Soojung.

“There is nothing to be seen, Seungwan. Honestly, I’m as flat as a board!” she jests, trying to drain that rouge on her cheeks out, making sure to hide her chest underwater. Even though it will still be transparent, but at least she tries. It’s not like Seulgi is asking her to strip down to her skin and join her.

She breathes in and out, walking to the toilet seat and closes the lid to sit there and face her.

“Okay, I’m sorry but I’m just not used to people exposing their sk-oh my God, Seulgi don’t stand up like that!” Seulgi guffaws out loud, devilish and wicked yet teasing cackles jumble out when she scares the soul out of Seungwan by standing abruptly, giving a sight of her in all her , as she holds the sides of her tub, chest and thighs and half of Seulgi exposed in all its stark-ness of white and reddish colours. Her hands flail to cover her face in panick and shrieks.

She sinks back into the tub and Seungwan relaxes in her seat, hands falling down after Seulgi assures her she’s in the water. Chests away from her sight. 

“I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable. I thought you wouldn’t come,” which is untrue, because Seungwan is not like that. She wouldn’t lie to her like that.

She props her arm on the toilet’s top, eyes focused on Seulgi. “What do you want to talk about?”

She goes straight to the point. “What changed when the three of us left, Seungwan?” Seulgi questions in a serious tone, her eyes focused on her, hairchilds coming out of her bun by the side of her face, afraid yet unafraid of the water trying to wet them. Her shoulders are slumped against the tub, sinking shadows to her skin as her collar bone portrude wildly to each of her shoulder blades.

“Too many things changed,” Seungwan’s lids droop slowly and a little bit painfully for Seulgi.

“Let’s start with Mingyu, shall we?”

“You know, Mingyu never really changed,” Seungwan plays with her fingers, stretching it and pulling and widening it to the thin air. “He blended in well with that group and in the first place, you must have realised that we are all very different. As we grew up, those differences become even more visible and evident. That’s why in the end, he is drawn to people who are alike to him: loud and boisterous people, those who are very active in the basketball te-”

“Wait, Mingyu no longer plays soccer? Why? He was so good back then!” Seulgi asks, bewildered and a little bit stunned. Not in a literal way, this time.

“I’m not sure,” Seungwan purses her lips. “I think I was never close enough with Mingyu to ask him personally. But Seokmin told me how he thought he suited basketball more. I mean, Mingyu sprouted really fast. Like a tree, he grew so tall by the end of 7th grade. Puberty did its magic to him, in all honesty.”

“C'mon, but not that tall. That’s unfair,” Seulgi feels like cursing since karma comes for her and now, she’s the shorter one out of the two. It doesn’t change the fact Mingyu used to be shorter than her. That fact will never change.

Seungwan chortles, birds chirping close to her. “I told you all back in the past right? Puberty will hit them and we will all get shocked. It didn’t really hit me since I saw him everyday, but looking at that wall of photos in your room, I can see how much we all have changed. Physically for the least.”

Particularly me. Seulgi hopes she doesn’t detect the smell of cigarette here.

“And then, in 8th grade Mingyu became more refined. He lost all these fats in his cheek, you know those cheeks Soojung often pinched when she got annoyed at him? Since he became taller, he became even more lean and skinny. All his features stood out even more, defined face and all. At that time, almost all the girls in our grade had a crush on him-”

If Seulgi is drinking something right now, she would have choked on it or spat it out. “He must have been so proud about it,” Seulgi grimaces, leaning back again on the tub.

Seungwan shakes her head. “He’s nice to all girls, if not everyone. Sometimes, too nice will be the word though nothing can ever be too much in the sake of kindness. But you know how girls are like. Back then, he had this way of talking to girls as if he is giving them unwavering attention and care-”

Seulgi doesn’t understand how it feels like to feel that way, but she still listens since it sounds pretty intriguing; this evolution of Mingyu to the person he is now. He seems a whole lot more decent that the him in the past. “Some girls misunderstood his kindness, I guess. He received a lot of confession letters in Valentine’s day, and he accepted none-”

“Those girls had enough guts to do that?! Holy !”

Seungwan tries not to flinch and Seulgi only smiles meekly. “Oops, sorry.”

“Moving on,” Seungwan brushes it off and rests her hands on her kneecaps, a pastel purple skirt reaching her knees over her legs. “Around that time, he already grew distant from Seokmin, from us. He spent more of his time with his newfound friends and his basketball team mates. It’s bound to happen, Seokmin earned his new set of friends and as well as myself. However, in the case of Seokmin and I, we knew each other’s friends pretty well, so we still talked to each other a lot. Until now-”

Seulgi is still listening but now, her eyes are casted to her fingers that are laid underwater to her thighs. She brings one of it up, then moves her fingers in intricate and soft yet sharp gentle movements following the droplets of water falling down her arm. Her eyes follow each droplet while moving her fingers and turning her hand to avoid making it fall. “That’s a good thing, that you stay friends with him. Seokmin always seems like a trustworthy guy, even back then. He joked around a lot, but he never crossed the line. Seems like he’s still the same.”

She continues even though Seulgi doesn’t seem to properly listen to her, since she is enjoying the sight of what Seulgi is doing with her fingers. Her fingers are shaped prettily like sunflower petals, and this twist and turn she does with her fingers look so eerily fascinating with her glazed and faraway eyes. “When graduation day happened, it was announced that Mingyu earned the highest score in our year. Even though we are no longer close, I was so proud of him,” A bright smile is carved on the curves of Seungwan’s lips and Seulgi looks up at the right moment.

Son Seungwan is still as dreamy as ever. She can hear her tell tales in the distance: about the little prince and his love for his red rose, about the boy who sweeps you off your feet with sprinkles of pixie dust and happy, happy and happier thoughts to make them fly off to Neverland where forever actually exists truly and growing up is out of the option. And to the tale of the twelve dancing princesses in their magical dancing shoes.

Her favourite is the tale of Alice in Wonderland. She had found the tale back then magical, with the Red Queen and her humongous head, Mad Hatter and his tea parties and the White Rabbit and his forever ticking clock, and all of these people loving and seeing Alice as a precious being.

She was like the turning point of their world, Alice was. But the more she grew up, the more twisted reality she faced, and she found out Alice is actually sick of reality and Wonderland is actually a world and a delusion inside of her head; a fantasy-like necropolis that is a result of high consumption of drugs.

Mad Hatter is actually mad and lonely with the March Hare as they hold tea parties night and day, while the White Rabbit is anxious and fidgety of time chasing and chasing him to his death. The Red Queen is obsessed with her power and everything she can move with the twirl of her fingers and everything she can remove with the slight cutting movement in the neck. The Dormouse sleeps a lot because he’s had enough of tea parties and Cheshire is her only friend, whose smiles and grins send shivers down her numb skin.

At least, that is what the demons inside of her head whispered, gurgled and spat to her brain when she dazed off. And now, they are mumbling things to her again.

off, I don’t need you all anymore.

Lies! Who protected you from those people? It was us!

Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut u-

Seulgi shut them up and turn their volume down. “That’s good. At least that would shut his mother up-”

“Seulgi.”

“It’s the truth, though. There is no need to deny it. She kept pressing and embarrassing him in front of us. She was too much,” steady breathing, slow paced beating heart, falling temperature skin, drowsiness draws Seulgi in and she snap her fingers to wake herself up.

“Did you see the way Mingyu look at Soojung? Wow, it was the strangest expression I have seen in his face,” it suddenly pops into her head, and she’s eager to know about her opinion, if she sees it as something odd also.

It was far from the usual scrunched eyebrows and lips curved downward whenever Soojung pulled on his cheeks and his ears, from the jovial and buoyant laughters he emitted when they laughed at something stupid and he was too busy laughing with Soojung to realize both were already in each other’s embrace. It was far from his usual eyes, appearing off as menacing and violent when Soojung pushed on his limits too much. It was everything but all of the aforementioned details of his facial expressions.

She’s only meant to ask this to Seungwan, since what will Wonwoo and Seokmin think of this? Their instinct in sensing situations are weaker than girls. In general, like most boys are. At least, that’s what Seulgi truly sees and thinks.

Her eyes light up in an instant. “Yes! All the years I spent here, I have never seen him gaze at someone that way. It’s not like I spent my life all day with him, but I think I would notice. We were in the same class for three whole years, and the look he had when he talked with the girls was always this steady and focused yet friendly look. He would pay his full attention to you when you are speaking-”

“-however, the expression he had when he was talking to Soojung, I truly never saw that. It wasn’t like him at all, so different from all the Mingyus I have seen-”

“It’s like he’s found something he lost a long time ago,” Seulgi is carefully watching the facial changes in her face.

She narrows her eyes cautiously. “Don’t lump real events with fairytales, Seungwan. It will ruin the truth itself,” she sees her reminiscent to her past stories and she doesn’t want her to lump her fairy tale theories to real life events. It will hurt her, it will ruin Seungwan horribly when she realizes that reality is so far from what those tales are all about.

She shakes her head fervently. “No, I understand what I am saying, Seulgi. It’s real, it’s what I think by putting aside my stories back then. But this is all just assumptions, only Mingyu himself knows what he felt back there. We can only guess as far as we could see.”

Seulgi taps the water with her fingers as if she’s playing on piano tuts, creating rippling sound of water being touched. “I think something happened between those two."

“If Soojung doesn’t want bring it up, we shouldn’t pester her. We all have things we want to keep to ourselves.”

She nods, trying to sound cordial even though there is this loud grating voice inside of her head. Loud, sinister and mocking, terribly close as if it is breathing to her earlobes. Pointy teeth grazing her skin, she pushes them all away as she hisses to herself, "It's not real, Seulgi. It never was and it never is."

Your dear Jung Soo Jung is no longer yours alone!

What a ed up thought. She never belongs to anyone!

“Anyhow, are you familiar with his friends yesterday, those five othe-” Seulgi halts herself as she sees Seungwan stops playing with her fingers all of the sudden, even though that’s all she’s been doing at this time.

“Something happened,” Seulgi proclaims, sounding sure as if it is a fact, voice hardening and thickening. “Something happened between you and those people-”

“Something happened between you with the dee-”

Seulgi sees Seungwan quakes quietly yet terribly loud when she closes and opens her eyes. She can almost feel her body shakes as she does so. Seungwan probably thinks this situation is unreal. “Jisoo was a student council president in our middle school. He was a member of the track team back then-”

As soon as she realizes that she’s been leaning forward to Seungwan, Seulgi relaxes back down, letting the girl continue her words. She doesn’t want to seem to pressure her into this. But she longs to grasp everything, still.

Seungwan shakes her head off any sad thoughts. Cherry blossom trees, interlaced fingers away from teacher's eyes, feeling planets and sun bursting out of her chest; it's all in the past. “The foreign looking guy is Choi Hansol. He transferred in 9th grade and he was a member of the art club. His paintings are pretty impressive, but I personally think it feels empty. It doesn’t make me feel anything,” only Seungwan will find souls in unmoving and solid art pieces. Seulgi only finds it in melodies and tunes seeking out humanity in her decaying soul.

“The girl who retorted back at Soojung,” Seulgi feels her fingers grip on the sides tightened and her anger rising again. “-her name is Nayeon and she was the captain of our school’s dance team-”

“Hold on, dance? That club exists here?!”

Seungwan nods in confirmation. “It began since our year, though. Nayeon formed it with her other friends-”

She feels like having a smoke, eyes wandering pointlessly around since with Seungwan here, the possibly falls to less than zero. “And Nayoung, the other girl is the captain of our school’s volleyball team.”

A scoff so loud and dented with aggravation jumbles out of her lips. “Seems like Mingyu has his own ideals of friendship now. The chance of him coming back here is less likely to happen with his upper-up people of a friend!”

She glances at Seungwan from the water and sees and hears that she no longer protects him with her silence as her reply. Seulgi somehow agrees with Ten’s statement that Seungwan shouldn’t protect Mingyu so much.

Ten is some sort of an outsider of their group. And when you see things from the outside with no attachments or biasedness, things get clearer and easier to be said since his connection to them is not deep enough to leave a scar.

“But you don’t have to be so harsh with him. Wonwoo used to be pretty close with Mingyu-”

“Well, then why is he hanging around me so much like a bug? Wonwoo must’ve noticed that Mingyu is no longer approachable,” Seulgi has to admit that his presence sometimes irritate her, since it forces her to do so much complaining and talking when she wasn’t in the mood for it. But not all the time. His voice beats out the screechy whispers inside of her brain and she can actually feel tranquil despite him bothering her. He is less chaotic and ragged than the him in the past, anyway.

“They are a tight-knitted group, I have to admit. They always go to places in one whole group: always six and never less than that-”

Seungwan suddenly looks uncomfortable, one thing and one flaw about Seungwan is that her face gives out her feelings too much, it almost seems uncontrollable. “It still rubs me off in the wrong way though; this point of Mingyu. Nayeon was his ex-girlfriend in 8th grade-”

“Wait, and he’s friends with her? That sounds fu-messed up.”

“Their relationship is too complicated to understand, to be honest. They were friends first, lovers then friends again. I’m not sure if they were real or not, to be honest-”

“Nayoung and Nayeon are fraternal twins and th-”

Something hit Seulgi. The girl in front of her with her hair in the shade of dark wood is avoiding to touch a certain subject. “You’re missing one person, Seungwan.”

The tidal waves swimming in Seungwan’s eyes come, autumn is fall with its dead leaves again and all the light is switched off in her face. Seulgi wants to hold Seungwan’s shoulders firmly and straightened her up and whisper "Be strong Seungwan. Be strong and not frail like the flowers that you love, don’t get destroy-don’t become like the beautiful, fragile things that you love; soft and ripped at the edges no-"

Seulgi realises that all this time, Seungwan is actually the ripped petal, not Soojung. She can protect herself now, unlike in the past.

Another shaky breath and chattering fingertips. All of them are cursed with feelings too hurtful for comprehension. Seulgi trembles for her, for the shadows appearing in her face.

“Seungcheol fell for me in the beginning of our 9th grade. He told me that in our first month. Said that I was sweet and kind. He tucked my hair behind my ears like it was the most precious thing in his world-" soft and tender, her voice seems like carressing everything in her bathroom with her past feelings. 

"By the second month, Seungcheol kissed me in the cheek and spun me around like gravity never existed and time is just a measurement of something as limitless as life, when he hit a homerun in his baseball tournament-”

“Everything ended in the beginning of the third month,” Seulgi wants to pull Seungwan into the water and teach her how to drown and drown until the depths of a sea that exists only in their minds. It’s always calming and breathtakingly tranquil down there.

She quickly pushes that thought away because Seungwan isn’t her. She wouldn’t be able to handle it, only Seulgi can.

Seungwan chortles bitterly, voice thick and eyes painfully blurry. “I was and am too constant and bland. I’m not like you, who is riveting and deeply thrilling and divine. I’m also not like Soojung, whose mind is beyond all of our comprehension, always a step ahead of us and an enigma. I’m horribly ordinary and grey.”

Seulgi's delusion get the best of her when she sees bloody shards in the middle of her chest. She wants to open Seungwan's body and see her heart if it's changed like her. Hopefully not.

Being broken is still better than being tattered into nothingness.

It’s all wrong. Everything Seungwan uttered is wrong because despite how ordinary she might think of herself, she finds Seungwan beautiful with her warm hands touching her whenever she gets mad or any of them get mad, soothing them down to their calmest state. Seungwan with her careful words and small yet thoughtful actions people never really notice always amaze Seulgi, even back in the past. And now even more, that they have grown up.

Kang Seulgi wants to fight that Seungcheol guy who makes Seungwan feel this worthless.

“Did-did Mingyu do anything?”

“It’s nobody’s fault, Seulgi. It was just a crush! It’s okay. No big deal,” she feels even more horrible seeing Seungwan’s broken smile, black locks aside of her face and hands cupping her kneecaps in a tight grip. “It wouldn’t have changed anything, really. Feelings are pretty ephemeral for boys our age back then-”

Seulgi sighs, realising that indeed what she feared comes true; Seungwan is mixing fairy tales with reality. It’s what the screechy voices inside of her head and her own genuine thoughts also. For the first time, they are in synch.

Aw, your friend fell into the rabbit hole, it seems! What a pitiful little thing!

She’s thankful for the least, that Seungwan doesn’t break down and spill herself in front of her. And Seulgi recalls the feeling of having smoke inside of her lungs, the suffocation and the blackness of it filling her lungs.

“Love is an illusion, my dear. Don’t fall for the second time again,” the voice coming out of Seulgi sounds foreign and Seungwan gazes at Seulgi with dilated pupils and shock drawn across her face.

It’s not the demons, though. It’s Seulgi and her side that she lets out when it’s needed. The contemplative yet sinister side of her that speaks the most painful truth. Seulgi is too young to know about anything real in love, but she thinks it’s dangerous. It’s unstable, and it drives the madness out of you.

She is a coiling twister warning Seungwan of the storm, a gentle one despite its raucous nature. For Seulgi is one who is ready for any kind of destruction, without the need to drag any of her loved ones with her.

Raw and stark atmosphere, it drives everything in Seulgi out and Seungwan can barely see the old Seulgi with her warring dreams of travelling into places away from here. That devilish and wicked nature stays though, and Seungwan can see despite her pessimism of the world, Seulgi is actually here with them all.

"I will wait outside, Seulgi," as if no longer wanting to share her secrets, Seungwan walks out from the chance of discovering Seulgi's wound of a beauty in her back, something she will find artful and passionate about her skin marked permanently in ink. So much commitment Seulgi did at such a young age. Seulgi never really share secrets unless being asked. Wonwoo had discovered it accidentally, for her carelessness and she doesn't really see this as a secret, to be honest.

But still, it ends up as a secret that is shared between her and Wonwoo; the boy whom she used to see as her mortal enemy, who echoes beating pulses to her skin with his touch, becoming more of a friend than he ever was.

She sinks deeper into the tub, bubbling out a curse before she is embraced by the ocean of her mind. "Damn, Jeon Wonwoo. Out of everyone, it just has to be you."