To be honest, when Irene agreed to go with Yeri and Wendy to take Seulgi to the dentist, she only wanted to make sure that Yeri’s not going to cause a mess.

Granted, Wendy is already going, but Irene can never be too sure because Yeri is unstoppable and both Wendy and Seulgi are just too good for this world (and too weak to resist Yeri’s aegyo).

She never really thought that it’s Seulgi who’s going to stir up trouble.

~

Taking out Seulgi’s wisdom tooth isn’t the problem, or the twenty minutes that follow after that, where Seulgi does nothing but giggle at every single thing Yeri does.

“Unnie, unnie!” Yeri whisper hisses in between breathless chuckles. “Unnie, watch this.”

Irene looks up from the paperwork she’s looking over—it’s really not unusual for Seulgi to miss something—and glances at their youngest member.

Yeri turns to Seulgi again after finally managing to get Irene’s attention, poking a still-dazed Seulgi lightly on the shoulder.

Seulgi’s shoulders gently shake, a tiny giggle escaping . It turns into a full-blown laugh when Yeri says, “Cheese.”

“Chicken, cheese. Chicken and cheese!” Yeri continues, even flapping her arms for effect.

Seulgi rolls onto her side, or at least as far as the dental chair would let her, and buries half of her face against the leather rest.

She even slaps a hand against the chair's arm. “She said cheese.”

(How cheese is funny, Irene will never know.)

On the other side of the dental chair, Wendy snickers. “Oh my God. She’s so out of it.”

“Cheese,” Seulgi repeats, and then snorts so hard that it brings another round of giggles from her, and chuckles from everyone, including Irene.

The dentist aide waltzes back into the room with Seulgi’s prescription in hand, and it forces Yeri to go back to her spot beside Irene (to her utter disappointment).

He goes straight to Irene, since she’s the one holding Seulgi’s paperwork. Besides, Seulgi isn’t really in the right state to explain prescription meds to.

Seulgi’s giggles eventually die down, now that their youngest is no longer blurting out random things.

But she gets bored too, just as quick, and starts scanning the room with one eye open. The other is caught close as she presses her temple deeper into the dental chair’s headrest, thoroughly entertained by the grey swirls half of her vision sees behind its lid.

The open half lands on Wendy, and it’s only then that Seulgi makes an effort to move her head. She cracks the other eye open, blinks the spots away, and then asks, “Do you like cheese? You look like you like cheese.”

“Do I?” Wendy humors her best friend. “Why do you say so?”

“Because you look like a hamster.”

Wendy gasps, though not out of offense. It’s more because of the innocent, earnest look on Seulgi’s face when she says it that reminds her of that one day back in kindergarten, and she had the curious guts to ask the teacher how babies were made.

Yeri cackles. Of course she does. Which leaves Irene to be the only one grimacing in embarrassment.

Thankfully, the dentist aide—the very, very kind dentist aide who helped convince the dentist that he absolutely can’t let them stay at the waiting area of his clinic or else people might swarm them; hence why they’re cramped inside the treatment room now—only huffs out a laugh behind his green face mask.

“I’m sorry,” Irene says. “I promise she’s not like this. Not usually.”

“I’ve encountered worse, trust me,” the aide replies. “At least she’s not crying hysterically about cheating boyfriends and whatnot.”

Irene doesn’t really want to touch that topic with a fifty-foot pole.

~

Yeri’s back at it again the moment the dentist aide steps out and she hears the click of the door closing.

Like Irene has said, unstoppable.

“Seulgi-unnie,” Yeri calls as she crosses the distance between her chair and Seulgi’s in two giant strides. “Unnie.”

“Hi,” Seulgi answers, slurring a little.

Yeri leans her face closer to Seulgi’s, and then laughs at the way Seulgi’s lips purse as she slowly goes cross-eyed.

And then she whispers fart, before blowing air through her lips to imitate the sound.

Seulgi bursts into a loud laugh, her hands clapping so sloppily she almost misses. But opens a little too wide and it pulls on the wound in a way that sends a sobering jolt throughout Seulgi’s system.

“Ow, ow,” Seulgi groans, cupping the throbbing side of her jaw with a hand. “My mouth hurts.”

“Yeri, that’s enough,” Irene lightly warns when it looks like Yeri’s about to go again.

Yeri pouts at her, though it doesn’t really work because Irene has somehow developed some level of resistance when it comes to their youngest’s aegyos.

(Some level, because it only works forty percent of the time; but Yeri doesn’t have to know that.)

Irene fishes her phone from her pocket to check the time, then, “Come on, we need to go so Seulgi can rest.”

She stands beside Yeri, and hands the prescription paper to Wendy for safe keeping (the only one who bothers bringing a bag with her every time they go out, bless her).

Yeri takes a step back as Irene leans forward and shakes a now whimpering Seulgi on her shoulder. “Seulgi-ah. We need to go now.”

Seulgi opens both her eyes in response to the voice she now deems angelic, and her whimpers quickly turn into whoas because, well, whoa.

One side of Irene’s hair is tucked behind her ear, while the other falls into perfect waves that Seulgi’s sure warrants at least ten shampoo CFs of different kinds—thirty seconds of the most beautiful woman she’s ever seen in her life and her beautiful hair getting blown by the wind is something she’d watch on loop for ten hours straight.

“Who’s that?” Seulgi whispers, or at least she thinks she does, but she really didn’t. “Who’s that? She’s so beautiful?”

When hangs open, Irene can see a piece of the gauze stuffed in her cheeks peeking out. She tries not to grimace, though she knows she fails.

Yeri, though, has no problems letting Seulgi know. “Unnie that’s disgusting,” she whines, and then pushes Seulgi’s chin to close.

But Seulgi’s mouth doesn’t budge as she stares at Irene, entranced.

“That’s the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen,” Seulgi confesses in a mumble. “Who is that?”

The words may have come out slurred, but Irene hears it perfectly. So perfectly that it sends the blood rushing to the tips of her ears and her eyes widening in surprise.

“Oh my God,” Wendy gasps again, muffling it with the hand she covers with so Irene wouldn’t hear.

Yeri—ever the goddess of mischief—plucks her phone out, quickly tapping on Joy’s name in their kakaotalk group chat for a video call.

Irene swears she hears Joy’s Yerimie this better be important, I’m in the middle of taping, and Yeri’s you can’t miss this, but she’s too stunned to tell her off; too floored to look away from Seulgi’s dumbstruck face.

She’s heard Seulgi tell her this a thousand times; but there’s something about the way Seulgi’s eyes shine earnestly—like a blind man seeing the sun for the first time—that disarms her completely.

“It’s Irene-unnie,” Yeri says to move things along, towards the interesting turn it has taken. Because Irene is too frozen to speak.

“Irene-unnie,” Seulgi repeats obediently; repeats two more times, like she’s trying to see how Irene’s name falls from her lips, and then smiling because she likes it. “Irene-unnie is so pretty.”

Seulgi turns to where Wendy is, stretching a hand out to tap her in the knee. “Hey. Do you think she knows who I am?”

Wendy presses her lips together to hold in a laugh, though her nostrils still flare when she answers, “I think she might.”

She hazards a wary glance towards Irene, but the other woman seems to be blinking nonstop, frowning in confusion because honestly, what is happening.

“Oh,” Seulgi quiets down, and then turns shy, casting bashful glances at Irene. “Do you know me?”

“I—I,” Irene starts with a stutter; clears to wipe the traces of her own bashfulness away. “I do. Yes.”

Behind her, Yeri snickers despite the glare that Irene throws over her shoulder, while Joy doesn’t even bother resisting the urge to cackle, and it echoes past the speaker of Yeri’s phone.

“Yeah?” Seulgi sighs, and her eyes form those crescents Irene loves seeing as she smiles. “I’m lucky.”

Irene drops her chin to hide the redness that spreads all over her cheeks, chewing at her bottom lip as she looks at Seulgi from under her lids.

“Why are you lucky?” Yeri prods, which earns her a sharp stop it from Irene that she completely ignores.

“Because Irene-unnie knows me,” Seulgi simply says. “Can I hold your hand?”

Irene slowly nods. She really can’t find it in her heart to say no, not when Seulgi’s looking at her like she hung the stars in the sky.

Seulgi lets out a soft yay as she reaches for the hand closest to her, pressing the back of it against her stuffed cheek.

Irene’s hand is a little cold and clammy, but Seulgi doesn’t mind it at all.

~

“Yeri, why are you making me watch this lovefest,” Joy whines from the other line; whines even more when Yeri zooms in and the camera catches the way Seulgi casually nuzzles the back of Irene’s hand, like she's been doing it for the longest time. “Where’s the savagery?!”

“There was, earlier!” Yeri defends. “Maybe I should say chicken and cheese again.”

“Irene-unnie,” Seulgi calls, and both Joy and Yeri admittedly wait with bated breaths for the next words that will come out of .

Though, they both groan in disappointment at Seulgi’s my mouth hurts, and the (sickeningly) soft, sweet way Irene dabs at the drool that slides down Seulgi’s chin with the paper towels she's pulled out of the nearby box.

Wendy tilts her head as she looks at the two, a knowing smile blooming on her lips. “I don’t think it’s gonna work, Yerimie.”

“Thank you,” Seulgi says after Irene finishes helping her clean up.

(Irene balls up the used tissue like it’s no big deal at all, and it’s how Wendy knows she’s right.)

“Seulgia-ah, let’s go home?”

Seulgi’s mouth hangs open again, and Irene is quick to stick two fingers under her chin just so she won’t stretch and pull at the wound again. “We have a house?”

Irene tsks first, and her be careful, please that follows falls on deaf ears because Seulgi is still waiting for the answer to her question. So she says, “We do.”

“Whoa,” Seulgi marvels, and if it's possible to get even more dazed, she does. “Did you marry me?”

“Mwo? No!”

“She’s not yet ready for that kind of commitment, unnie,” Yeri jumps in, and Joy laughs her approval.

“Oh,” Seulgi hums. There’s a long second where she pouts at that piece of information, but her eyes smile again when she says, “That's okay. I can wait.”

“Kim Yerim!” Irene twists around to give Yeri a firm smack on her head, but Seulgi has interlaced their fingers together, which keeps her in place.

“Do I get to kiss you one day?”

Yeri backs away for a good distance, to a spot that she knows will be impossible for Irene to reach, and then says, “Maybe later, Seulgi-unnie. Coz your mouth still hurts.”

“You are so dead,” Wendy says—states—because judging by the murderous look in Irene’s eyes, it’s basically a fact.

One that Irene confirms through gritted teeth. “She. Is.”

From the Kakaotalk’s line, they hear a guy’s voice shout Joy-sunbaenim, you’re up next, to which Joy answers with a loud, ecstatic five more minutes! I can’t miss this!

“Irene-unnie.” Seulgi tugs at Irene’s hand, wanting to get her attention back; ignores the ruckus that Yeri and Joy are making.

Irene’s stern voice melts into mellow once she turns to face Seulgi—which makes Wendy roll her eyes (in good nature, of course), because there's oblivious, and then there's these two.

But even she cackles when she hears Seulgi say, “Can I touch your ?”

And at the very, very high pitch that she doesn't even know Irene can reach. “Kang Seulgi!”