The lights were dim. The curtains were pulled shut. The door was closed. The atmosphere was tepid.

Everything was silent except for the light snoring of the girl lying weakly on the bed, and the pained, laboured breathing of the girl accompanying her.

Oh, how familiar was this sight? An act that she vowed never to commit anymore—and yet, just days on, here she is, crumbling back into the memories and the sight and the scent and the acts and the scent and the shape of you.

Well, to be fair, she had an excuse. Seolhyun had looked shattered after the ordeal—weakly crumbling into her arms, mumbling incoherent nothings, before completely giving in to her warmth and becoming incapable of motion.

Though Hyejeong would never forget the look of serenity the second before she arrived.

The second before she left the world of the living forever.

When was the first time they sat like this? It must have been just a few months ago, Hyejeong recalled, when they first commenced whatever this relationship between them could be called. Two sweaty bodies colliding in a mess of lust and desire, coagulated like glue all the way from the club back to the house, their intense feelings manifest in glares of desire and touches of hunger. Their eyes only really separating to enter their house, fumble briefly for the lights before deciding to it altogether and go straight to it.

Her bed, untouched by anyone else, now home to a foreign entity writhing and cursing in ecstasy.

Her bed, large enough only for one, now seemingly perfect for two.

Her bed, making a one night stand feel like two. And three. And maybe, forever.

It must have been a few months ago when they could taste such careless bliss on each others lips. But by that token, it felt like eons.

She glanced back down at the girl lying unconscious on her bed, her long fingers gently caressing the smooth strands of her hair. Smooth still, and yet she could feel traces of neglect and tangled-ness and unhealthiness—as if, just like her, her hair had given up too. She traced the contours of the face of the girl she loved, constantly reminding herself that they were over. That what she was feeling, the overwhelming, suffocating feeling of pain and sorrow and regret, was but temporary. That the girl’s stay in front of her would be but physically temporary.

And yet, she knew that as long as the girl in front of her said one word about staying, her walls would crumble, and stay she would.

What on earth had gone so wrong? The sound leaving Seolhyun’s mouth had transitioned from desperate moans to cries of delight, to cries of happiness. They were no longer in lust, but in love. She recalled the second time they were together on Hyejeong’s bed. It was around the time when they first started unofficially cohabiting, when Hyejeong was sitting on the bed marking digital assignments while Seolhyun was draped across the other three-quarters, one arm wrapped tightly around Hyejeong’s waist, the other strewn carelessly on the crisp white sheets.

They had sung the hymn of love that night, without ever having to get . The tiny feeling of warmth generated by her arm, the overpowering feeling of contentment at being serenaded by the scent of her lover, the playful whines of someone who wanted more attention; were they not declarations of love too?

They had already officially, irreparably been inducted into the halls of love; her bed ordained as the symbol of their union.

She refocused back on the sleeping figure as she heard the faintest noise ghosting from Seolhyun’s lips. Her attention was frantically drawn back to her, her mind rapidly scaling through the possible reasons behind that sound. Was it shock from the incident just now? Was it a nightmare running through Seolhyun’s mind?

(The one possibility Hyejeong failed to consider: that that was a perfectly normal noise to be made by a person who was sleeping normally)

After five minutes of watching the girl tensely, passionately, Hyejeong staggered out of her room. The atmosphere, the memories were all too suffocating. Yet this felt horribly like a cop-out, escaping from the one final loose end that she had yet to tie.

Stumbling onto the couch outside, her hand instinctively reached out to grasp the armrest for support, the other stretching out to grab the cup of water she had hastily poured the moment she came back. Turning her focus to the black pullover tossed carelessly onto the couch, her mind invariably danced back to the girl who now graced her room—it was the couch that was her first destination.

Allowing herself just this one privilege, she let her mind flow back to that terse encounter on the rooftop. Her heart was really in —that is, if it hadn’t already leapt out of her body altogether—when she saw Seolhyun perched on the ledge, both legs dangling over the tip, her tiny hands moving her seated self closer and closer to the tip until her center of gravity shifted so much so that nature carried her back to the earth in her final journey.

She had been so close. Her desperate cry of her name was so weak and so despairing that it was a miracle Seolhyun even turned to her in the first place. Even when she had stopped her advance towards peril and just sat there still, Hyejeong still had no idea what to do, her legs trembling, her posture uncertain. Eventually she decided to walk slowly towards her girl (is that what you are supposed to do?), not trusting with any words.

Eventually she arrived right in front of Seolhyun, and instinctively, wrapped her arms tenderly around her. Instinctively, Seolhyun’s head dove immediately for the crook of her neck, rubbing her head desperately as if in disbelief that she could do that again.

(Just like they had always done.)

It was eons later before Seolhyun’s tears dried and she heard the faintest of requests from Seolhyun.

“Bring me home, unnie?”

And Hyejeong scooped her up immediately, running through the school corridors and fields without a thought for who saw them, and brought her back home.

(Just as she had always done.)

It was the doorbell that woke her up from