“Wow, you look terrible."

Wendy’s skyping her older sister at a ridiculous time in the morning, being evidently super flattered after turning on her webcam.

“Thanks so much.” She groans, and Seunghee throws her head back in a laugh.

“I’m just joking! But you look like you haven’t slept in a decade.”

Wendy combs a small hand through her hair, fiddling with the tips of her bangs and sighs, cheeks pink. It’s 3AM already. She probably hasn’t slept well in a decade. And she knows it’s not the embarrassment of being on ‘cam that’s made her flushed, but that every time she thinks back to herself in bed it’s her staring at Seulgi in the bunk across from her, and not being able to ward off this sickly feeling in her heart.

“Isn’t that SM Town Halloween fiasco coming up?” Seunghee queries, bringing her younger sister back to the present.

Wendy attempts an air of nonchalance. “Seulgi and I are going to a costume shop tomorrow, unnie.”

But Seunghee still rolls her eyes at ‘Seulgi’, which she’s been doing quite often. Does she not like Seulgi? Wendy talks about her in too perfect a light to conjure any bad feelings. How could she?

“You two do everything together, huh.”

“Of course,” Wendy feels her speech getting a bit bitter, suddenly defensive, “We’re best friends.”

Best friends echoes back to her through her sister’s screen and it sounds like she just about spit it out. She doesn’t know if it’s her wifi lagging, but her older sister nods slowly and without enthusiasm. Her stare, however, is intense by Son-trademark.

“You know you can tell me anything, Seungwan.”

This is a tone Wendy only ever heard when she’d done something wrong, or didn’t want to fess up to breaking Seunghee’s old Pixel Chix, and she doesn’t want to think about its implications. So her heart fills with dread.

--

Wendy pays for both of their drink bottles at a little corner shop they’ll have no chance of being spotted at, and they swing out of the door with their arms linked.

“I’m sure you’d suit anything you picked.” Wendy offers with an excited smile. Her eyes widen dramatically in admiring Seulgi and she doesn’t have to be subtle, because Seulgi’s always thought Wendy just has intense eyes.

“Thanks, Wan.” She mumbles modestly, nudges her shoulder. They’re walking down towards a fancy dress shop and should probably have a lot more of a game plan in their heads by now (Yerim’s plans to be Hermione Granger seem to have been cemented since the second she debuted) but they kind of just assume they can bounce ideas off each other.

Wendy feels Seulgi lagging when they walk past a communal bus stop, and with her arm dragging a dead weight for the next step sees she’s grinded to a halt.

The way she’s staring the posters down is so freaking adorable because she appears to be heavily immersed, yet has such a natural spaced-out quality to her eyes that she just seems confused. Wendy’s grinning again. She probably hasn’t stopped since they started walking.

“What is it?”

The air’s cold and streams out of Seulgi’s nostrils. “I think I’ve decided on my costume.”

Something cute? Wendy desperately needs it to be something cute. If it’s any more intense than that she might as well bid farewell to the world. So Wendy scans the poster board, and oh - her line of sight falls right on an Ad for invisible braces.

“Um, a dentist?” She snorts before filling to the brim with water. Seulgi’s sharp eyes scrunch up and she shakes her head. She points upwards.

“I want to go as Harley Quinn.”

It’s declared as simply as that. The villainess aura and eyeliner and baseball bats slam right into Wendy’s skull and before she knows it she’s spat her mouthful of water onto the pavement, the blood rushes right to her cheeks in embarrassment. When she can face Seulgi again she looks a little bit amused, but mostly confused.

“Not a good idea?”

“Oh my god, sorry, no,” Wendy dabs at her chin, thinks she’d just about die if there were any cameras around, “A great idea. I think I just put too much water in my mouth.”

“Or you were just stunned by the idea of me looking that hot.” Seulgi strides out, twirls, declares it over-dramatically in a way that pulls Wendy’s heart strings in all the wrong ways. The way she’s joking is blindingly blatant. Wendy has to fake laugh it all off.

--

Wendy compliments Seulgi whenever she has the chance, doesn’t let UFO users forget how much she treasures her for even a split second and most of all sticks to her side like glue.

Honestly, even with so many promotions and constant preparations there’s nothing that quite exhausts her like constantly mulling over Seulgi and what this one smile meant and what it didn’t; but it’s not as though Wendy just gives without receiving. Seulgi practically matches everything she says, tells her she loves her and has reassured Wendy countless times that she enjoys her clinginess. It makes Wendy just wonder… maybe… maybe there’s something she’s trying to keep concealed too. Maybe, in her dreams, she could say something and Seulgi would feel the same.

But Seulgi’s also an impossibly bad liar (it’s truly quite astounding) and can be as dense as a concrete wall. She rants to Wendy about some actor guy she likes. The flame of hope dies.

“Kaonashi? And you laughed at the idea of me being a dentist,” Seulgi’d remarked as soon as her costume order had been dropped off. She’d protested against Wendy ‘hiding her pretty face’ as she slid on the mask, and obviously Wendy’d bounced the compliment off before she could let it sink in and make this feeling in her heart so sickly she could gag.

“It’s kind of ironic that you’re Harley.”

“Why?” Seulgi looks at her with intrigue – it’s slightly vacant but as intense as Seulgi gets.

Wendy thought it was something she remarked in her head and not out loud, so she almost dies on the spot.

“Like, you know how Harley lusted over the Joker and it was all so one-sided. And it’s you.”

“Um,” Seulgi mulls over it because she really wants to understand what her intelligent best friend Wendy has to say, she really does, “Why is that ironic? Is someone lusting over me?”

Wendy tenses from her neck to her shoulders and curses herself for getting herself into these difficult situations so often. “Only, like, the entire human population.” Her tone of voice is croaky, gross and high, which it basically never is, so Seulgi’s quite obviously pretending she didn’t pick up on that.

“That’s very sweet,” Seulgi lets the compliment sink right in because she’s at no risk of this sickly feeling of delusion and unreciprocated feelings, Wendy remarks in her head and masks the urge to grit her teeth with a winning smile. “Let’s catch up with the others.” Seulgi grins back and starts on ahead, but not so quickly so Wendy can still latch onto her arm.

The other members all went as something cute. Joy’s adorably enchanting, and Irene and Yeri are adorable full-stop. It only makes Seulgi’s outfit worse to survive being around, her eyeliner sharp enough to impale someone and baseball bat so uncharacteristically badass.

So Wendy being No-Face was an absolutely genius decision on her part, it soon appears. She doesn’t have to monitor her face. She can glow the deepest of crimsons and have it go unnoticed.

She realises she can stare and stare without restraint and if Seulgi realises, it’s easy to laugh off – she’s just creepy! In character! Looming without anything but eye holes like No-Face would with a clammy grip on Harley’s wrist that doesn’t seem to budge for the entire night.

--

The general hubbub’s grown thick and everyone’s around the central area of the party dancing to Married To The Music rerun after rerun, and as much as being Kaonashi has its benefits, there’s zero ventilation so she’s cooling off near the door with Heechul the Teletubby who’s apparently having the same problem.

“No one’s going to be seduced by you when you’re all sweaty, right?” Heechul flaps his Po arms, trying to conjure some sort of breeze. Wendy’s eyes look instantly petrified through her mask holes.

“Don’t worry, I don’t know who it is, but I know that look.”

“You can’t even see my face.”

But he’s off, blending right back into the SM idol masses. She doesn’t have time to consider what he meant or what he said or whether she’s now alone-ish, because as soon as he’s gone Seulgi emerges.

“I was looking for you everywhere.” She smiles, her blue cheek now as flushed as her red cheek from all of the dancing.

“Really? Well now you’ve found me, I, uh-“ Wendy starts, tripping over her sentences as if they only just met and it’s too late to go back now. She lifts her mask over her head and bites the bullet. “I kind of really like you, Seulgi.”

This week’s been one of many mistaken sentences and a whole extra weight of confusion, and time is agonizingly slow in waiting for Seulgi to respond.

She makes a face. Abort mission, this is bad, this was definitely a bad idea -

But then she laughs. “Kind of? You can’t do better than that? Well, I love you, my best friend forever Son Seungwan.”

Wendy almost opens to interject and probably makes a whole collection of little expressions in a five second time frame, but decides it’s best to leave it there. Seulgi has never, and will never, have any idea – they’re just ‘best friends’. It gets more and more sour every time she hears it, and now the flame of hope isn’t just dead, it’s building its own coffin.

She smiles. “I love you too, Seulgi.” And then the mask slides back on so her face can drop. Seulgi just keeps smiling.