Moonbyul gets up off the ground. I can’t let her run my life. She did enough of that while we were together, and yet here she is, doing it to me even when we’re apart.

Feeling defiant, she walks away from the restaurant, not bothering to let her co-workers know that she left.

She draws her coat tighter around her body as a cold breeze pushes past her, blowing her long, blonde hair to the side.

“Where have you been, Moonbyul?”

“I told you that I was meeting a friend for a drink.”

“Is it her again?” Solar asks with an edge in her voice.

“I have more than one female friend.”

“You know who I’m talking about! The one that flirts with you!”

“Yes, it was her, and no, she does not flirt with me. She has a boyfriend,” answers Moonbyul, tensing up.

Solar crossed her arms. “That doesn’t stop some girls from exploring other possibilities.”

“Even if she does ‘explore’, you know that you’re the only one for me!”

“Sometimes I’m not so sure about that. Your playful banter with other girls constantly seems to border on flirting.”

Moonbyul groans. “Not this again… I’ve told you that it’s all meaningless. I just like to interact with girls that way-”

Solar interrupts. “And some girls will think you’re being serious about it! Including the girl you saw today, since you keep acting like you’re flirting with her!”

“I don’t flirt with her!”

“I’ve seen the way you two giggle together, and the skinship you have with her,” Solar says frostily.

“We’ve been friends for a long time! You used to like her too, before we became a serious couple. Why are you so distrustful of her now?”

“Because now I have more to lose!” Solar shouts.

Moonbyul spoke softly as she walks over to her girlfriend. “Baby, you know you can trust me. You never have to worry about her taking me away from you.” She tries to embrace the brunette.

Solar pushes her away. “Do you love me?”

“Of course I do!”

“Then stop being friends with that girl,” the brunette says flatly.

Moonbyul was stunned by the proposition. “What?!”

“I’m tired of feeling anxious every time you go out with her by yourselves!”

The blonde felt hurt. “Don’t you trust me?!”

“Yes, but not when you flirt around with someone who has questionable character!”

“You have to believe me! I don’t flirt with her!”

“I think you and I have a different definition of flirting,” answers Solar in a serious tone.

 The girls stood in silence, looking unwaveringly at each other.

“You never got over your trust issues,” mumbles Moonbyul as she continues walking along the sparsely populated sidewalk. “Perhaps you never truly believed me when I said you were the only one who matters to me.”

Soon, she finds what she was looking for; a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant.

She buys a family-sized bucket of chicken, and then visits a convenience store to finish out the short list of items that she had just made up on the spot.

“I smell some good chicken!” says the boy at the cash register as Moonbyul puts her chosen purchases onto the counter.

“Just do your damn job.” Moonbyul wasn’t in the mood to be friendly.

“Cheese sauce and ice cream? I hope you’re not planning to combine them!” says the boy as he pressed buttons on the register.

The blonde doesn’t respond as she impatiently waits for him to tell her the total cost.

After she had paid and left without a word, she headed home. It hurt when you didn’t trust me. What are you supposed to do when the one you love doesn’t trust you? Are you supposed to keep trying, or know when it was time to give up?

I kept trying as long as I could, but I became too worn out.

I was starting to feel suffocated by your insecurity.

Moonbyul noticed that there were two girls walking towards her from a distance, on the same side of the street. They were holding hands. Unknowingly, a tiny smile crept up on her lips.

Remember when we used to do that? When you were by my side, with your hand in mine, it was one of the most wonderful feelings I’ve ever had. It felt like-

Her thoughts were interrupted when she sees who the girls were. Or more specifically, who one of the girls were.

It was Solar, and a girl that Moonbyul didn’t recognize.

The blonde saw that the two girls were so absorbed in their conversation that they didn’t notice her. She immediately felt a rush of mixed emotions when she sees her ex-girlfriend with another girl.

Moonbyul quickly looks down, so that her blonde hair covered her face.

“You’re so cute when you do that!” Solar says to the girl.

The girl giggles. “No, I’m not! I totally messed that up! Let me try it again. Bbuing bbuing!”

Both Solar and the girl started laughing.

“Shut up!” snapped Moonbyul, and instantly regretted it. She hastily pulls her phone out and pretends to be talking to someone.

The two girls turned to her.

Her long blonde hair, her slim body, and her low voice seem awfully familiar. Solar narrows her eyes. “Moonbyul? Is that you?”

The blonde kept walking while talking with her imaginary friend.

“Come back here, right now!” Solar demands.

Moonbyul ignores her and walked faster, laughing as though she heard something funny on her phone.

Solar frowns. It was you, Moonbyul. I recognize that laugh anywhere.

Moonbyul goes into her apartment building and takes the elevator. She sets her plastic bags down and leans against an elevator wall.

Seeing Solar with someone else hurt her like nothing she experienced before. It felt like her wounds had reopened.

“You’re over me already! You’ve moved on! And here I am, still being dragged down by our past! How did you get away from it so easily?!” she exclaims bitterly.

The elevator bell chimes as the door opens.

She harshly picks her plastic bags back up and stalks into the hallway, feeling upset and demoralized. The pain in my heart is not going away, and seeing Solar with someone else has made it worse. Why does she get to move on, but I don’t? How is that fair?!

The blonde steps into her apartment, feeling lonelier than ever. Shutting the door behind her, she goes over to her couch and sat down heavily.

“Was I that easy to forget?”

The blonde picks her phone up. Even though it was late, she sends Seulgi a text message.

Moonbyul: Seul, are you up? I really need someone to talk to right now

She waits for a few minutes, but there was no reply. She sighs as she tosses her phone aside. “ this.”

Moonbyul gets back up and puts the ice cream into the refrigerator, while taking some bottles of soju out. Next, she dumps the bucket of chicken onto a large plate, and pours cheese sauce all over the fried chicken.

The blonde opens a bottle of soju. “Now this is how you drown your sorrows.”

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

“Kim Yeri!”

“Yes!” She steps out from her position.

“Louder!”

“Yes!”

“Your training buddy will be Kang Seulgi-sunbaenim over there on range number 3.” The girl raises her head timidly to be greeted by a warm smile from the other girl.

“All right, everyone. You are going to have the first attempt of air pistol shooting to test your capability. Before that, I will give everyone 10 minutes training time with your training buddy, who will be coaching you. Your training buddy will be with you until the end of training so, please get along with them well.”

“Are there any further problems? You may speak out.” The instructor asks.

“No!”

“All right, your 10 minutes starts now.”

It has only been about a minute since the training began but the petite girl can’t stop herself stiffening at the palm that is currently holding onto her waist from behind. She tries to focus on the target in front of her but the unfamiliar touch continues to linger in her mind.

Seulgi must have felt the discomfort as she slowly moves her hands away.

“Just remain in this posture,” she speaks gently while the girl nods.

“All right everyone, you may shoot whenever you are ready!”

She watches as the other girls steady themselves in their position at the command before several shots are fired and the sounds echo throughout the whole room. The target boards slide forward to their sight and Seulgi purses her lips tightly in an attempt to prevent herself from laughing.

Her training mate beside her gives her a light nudge at her inappropriate behaviour. She looks back at the former and it takes only seconds before she sees through her pretence. She thought that the scene before her was cute. It’s normal and expected. They were just like the newcomers too when they first joined, maybe even worse.

“Sunbaenim…” Seulgi breaks out of her little joke when her trainee looks back with a gloomy expression.

“It’s okay,” she is about to put her hand on her shoulder when she recalled the previous event.

“It’s totally normal since it’s your first time. See, everybody’s like that too!”

She watches as the girl turns around to observe her surrounding and breaks into a wide grin when she realises that she’s not the only one.

Seulgi smiles as she reaches her arm out for the target board before encouraging the girl, “At least you manage to get 2 points!”

“Is that considered a good start?”

“You can say so.”

∞

“Run faster! Is this the fastest all of you are capable of?” The instructor raises his voice at the new trainees on the large running field that can be heard even up in the audience seats.

His intense attitude towards the training seems to have pay off when some of the girls can be seen picking up their speeds, creating a further distance away from the slower ones. However, this doesn’t satisfy the instructor. It somehow gives an excuse for him to find blame on those who were falling behind.

“Those at the back! What are you doing? Is this called running?”

Seulgi sits on the front row of the audience seats beside her training mate as she fixes her gaze on her trainee. The little figure can be seen panting heavily while slowing down. She seems to be worn out.

“Your trainee is seriously coming in last,” Joy comments.

“I know. She doesn’t seems like she’s the sporty kind of person anyway.”

“You! Run faster!” The instructor’s loud voice once again alerts the girl.

The expression of the girl on the field changes to a gloomy one and Seulgi can only sigh before getting up from her seat and heading down towards the field.

“Where are you going?”

“Be right back, I’m going to play my role as her training buddy,” she waves back at her mate.

She walks past her instructor and bows before speaking up, “I’ll run with her together as an encouragement.”

The instructor is obviously not happy with her decision and she gulps when he stares at her intensely. His glare has always been that scary the moment she enters the club. She thought that the others must be thinking the same way.

“All right.”

She is definitely surprised.

∞

The empty room is quiet and dark until a long haired figure breaks the peace. She switches the lights on and hastily makes her way towards her study desk while ditching her bag on the way.

The laptop is switched on and she goes into the kitchen to grab a cup of water before heading back to the desk. She’s late.

“Hey,” she calls out to the person on the screen after some failed attempts.

Her eyes are not staring onto the screen and her face is turned away slightly in another direction. Seulgi can tell that the girl is angry.

“I’m sorry. Training ended late today.” She tries to lift the mood up but it clearly doesn’t work.

She looks at the other girl for any signs of response but she just remains in the same position when the call starts.

“Are you angry?” Obviously.

Seulgi mentally smacks herself for such a dumb question.

“Hey,” she pauses to construct the apology better.

“I’m sorry, all right? I know that I should have given you a text yesterday to tell you that I will probably be late, so that you wouldn’t be up so early to wait for me. It kind of slipped off my mind.”

She frowns at the unmoved sight.

“Everything slips off your mind.”

It was soft but it could still be heard. Her eyes lit up at the response however, she is unable to comprehend the meaning behind the sentence.

“Huh?”

“If things can slip off your mind so easily, you might as well forget the fact that I am your girlfriend.”

Her mind goes blank. She loves almost everything about Irene but she just couldn’t stand it when she have to go around a whole big circle to talk about something. She wish that she can be straightforward like how she is.

“Is it really that serious? I merely forget to inform you about it.” She sighs.

“You know that I’m not talking about this.”

Now she is really clueless. She scrambles every muscles of her brain and try to recall if there’s anything that she had done wrong. All she could remember is a very routine week just as usual. Studying and going to training has always been her priority. What else could have gone wrong?

“Monday night.”

The words trigger her memory in a flash just like a button. Now she remembers. She did something wrong, and terribly wrong. She cringes at the sudden realisation as her apologetic eyes met the others.

“It was Wendy who had invited me.”

“You never told me.”

“I’m telling you now.”

“Would you have told me if I didn’t ask?”

“I was planning to tell you about it today but I had forgotten that Wendy actually tagged me on Facebook.” Seulgi lowers her head and remains silent as if she had done something wrong.

Joohyun’s expression is unreadable. For a moment, she thought that she would lash out at her like usual but not this time. She is hurt and she knows. Maybe she shouldn’t have accepted the invitation the other day.

“You know I don’t like it when you go there.”

“It was just once, and I kept my promise. I didn’t drink at all.” She prays that the girl would believe her words.

“Don’t try to fool me like I'm a kid. Who goes to the club without drinking?”

“Come on, are we seriously going to argue about this right now?”

She often thought that she was able to handle the difficulties of her girlfriend. She could easily cheer her up when she was sad; she could accompany her to sleep whenever she was feeling lonely; she could take care of her when she is sick; she could do anything. Yet now, they are far apart from each other. She can’t do anything. She is helpless.

The situation is made worse when she sees tears flowing out from Joohyun’s eyes. Things are not supposed to be like this today.

“Okay, I admit that I was wrong but you have to stop being so paranoid. We are too far away from each other. You have to understand that I can’t always be here.” Her tone is almost to the point of pleading.

“So you just admitted that you did lie to me!”

“Fine, I did drink a little but I’m not him. I won’t cheat on you just like that.”

Seulgi looks on as her cries become more audible. She shouldn’t have mention him.

She was about to say something when the line is suddenly cut off. The video call ends and all she is left is a black screen in front of her. She can only stare at it.

She closes her eyes while rubbing on the sides of her forehead. Times like this, she just wants to quit.