Seungwan awoke to the sound of sniffling beside her. She groggily turned over, only somewhat aware that her normally empty bed was now harboring another person. A person who was dressed in her slightly-too-small pink and white striped pajamas, a person with her beautiful auburn hair tied up into a messy ponytail, a person who was curled up tightly into a ball, crying quietly into her own knees.

    Seungwan checked the clock. It was 4:02am.

    “Seulgi?” Seungwan asked, propping herself up on her elbow and rubbing her eyes, “What’s wrong?”

    “S-Seungwan,” Seulgi replied in a hoarse voice, not bothering to turn over, “I’m so sorry…”

    “For what?” Seungwan was concerned now. She grabbed her glasses from the nightstand, placing them on her face and reaching over to rub Seulgi’s shoulder.

    “I ed up. I’m a horrible person.”

    “Why?”

    Seulgi turned around then, and Seungwan was almost taken aback by how terrible the older girl looked. It was as if she’d been crying for hours now.

    “You're going to hate me.” Seulgi sounded so serious that it made Seungwan’s heart hurt. What could she have possibly done?

    Seulgi looked up then, finally meeting Seungwan’s eyes. Surprisingly, her voice came calm and steady, an outpouring of neatly organized words that rolled out of as if she’d been rehearsing them over and over prior to this.

    “My roommate isn’t my roommate. She’s my girlfriend. My girlfriend of five years. Who I love very much. More than anything else in the world. But that night I met you in the club… when I saw you, it’s like someone else was possessing me. When I’m with you, it’s always like that. I don’t know what made me act the way I did. Why I didn’t just tell you the truth, and forget about you like a good person would do. But I didn’t. I kept seeing you in secret. Remember that girl Jisoo who saw us on a date? She’s is my ex, but from a long time ago. From before my current girlfriend. She’s the one who told my girlfriend. And I can’t even be mad at her for it… I don’t know what I was thinking. That I could have both of you at the same time, and it wouldn’t cause any problems?”

Seulgi let out a sharp, bitter, laugh. Seungwan had no words, only a blank stare, the silence in the room weighing heavily on both of the girls as they lay in the darkness. The brunette continued.

“And eventually my girlfriend found out, tonight. We got into an argument, and I ran away. And I came here, genuinely believing that I didn’t need her anymore. That I could come to you instead and replace what I had with her. But I can’t. I can’t do that. Because now I understand that although I do care for you, I really love my girlfriend. With all of my heart. And I ruined a good thing by making stupid mistakes. I know this probably hurts you just as much as it hurts her. And I’m sorry. I’m so, so, sorry.”

Seungwan remained speechless. She slowly sat up in bed, leaning back against her bedhead and letting out a sigh. She should be angry, but she wasn’t. She simply felt exhausted. Seulgi remained silent, allowing the younger girl to take as much time as she wanted to sort out her thoughts.

“You know we can’t keep doing this, right?” she said after a time. She closed her eyes, finding that she was unable to look at Seulgi anymore, “I can’t support something like this.”

“I know.” Seulgi said plainly, “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know what to say right now. I’m kind of in shock.”

“I understand. You deserve to be mad at me.”

“I don’t know how I feel right now. I… I really felt something special between us, you know? I like you a lot.”

Seungwan turned to look at Seulgi, slightly annoyed that there were tears beginning to form in her own eyes. Seulgi had resumed her crying as well, although she was much more composed now, and the moisture ran soundlessly down her cheeks.

“And I like you a lot, too,” Seulgi whispered, “But-”

“But you really did up.” Seungwan finished.

Seulgi nodded.

The two girls were quiet for a time, laying near-motionless on Seungwan’s bed. Eventually, the younger girl mustered up the energy to speak again.

“I think you should go.”

Seulgi looked both surprised and hurt, but she nodded in agreement.

“That’s probably for the best.”

The monolidded girl stood up and began gathering her own clothes, shamelessly undressing and redressing right then and there in order to make her departure as rapid as possible.

The gravity of the situation was still settling its way into Seungwan’s mind. She’d helped a woman cheat on her girlfriend of five years. She tried to imagine the level of betrayal Seulgi’s significant other must be feeling. And it made sense now, the way Seulgi had reacted to that girl Jisoo.

“Your roommate of five long, happy years...”

How could she have been so blind?

Seulgi finished dressing, and was looking at Seungwan expectantly. The blonde got up from bed, walking with her former lover through the living room, past the couch, stopping to open the front door. The older girl stepped outside, but turned around one last time.

“Seungwan,” Seulgi said, “I really am sorry for all of this. I should’ve told you from the start that I was taken.”

“Yeah, you should’ve. But you’re apologizing to the wrong person. At least I didn’t waste five years on you.” Seungwan was surprised by the uncharacteristically biting tone in her voice (especially when Seulgi flinched slightly at her words), but it felt justified.

“I know… I’m going to go back to her, and see if she can forgive me.”

“Good luck,” Seungwan said, beginning to close the door, “I know I wouldn’t be able to. But then again, maybe she’s just a better person than I am.”

The wooden door shut firmly, followed by a soft click as it was locked directly after. At around 5:16am, she received a call from an unfamiliar number.

***

    Joohyun was jerked out of her half-slumber by the sound of her doorbell ringing. She had been in and out of sleep the entire night, face buried in the pillow beside her, clutching it so tightly that her arm was numb. Each time she’d wake up, she would start sobbing again, because the pillow smelled exactly like Seulgi.

    She checked her phone for the time. 4:44am. She had an idea of who it would be standing outside her door, and she wondered vaguely why the younger girl hadn’t simply just used her house key to get in. With this thought came a rush of emotions, dark, horrible, heavy emotions that crashed onto her heart like a hammer striking a nail, causing her to lips to quiver, her eyes filled with new tears as she clenched her teeth in order to contain the wail that threatened to escape from her lungs.

    She stood up, focusing entirely on her own breathing in order to keep her mind as clear as possible. A sinister anxiety roiled within her, and her walk to the door felt surreal. She unlocked the door, pulling open slowly to reveal the messily dressed, actively crying monolidded girl that lay behind it. Neither of them spoke for a moment, merely regarding each other; Seulgi with sad, pleading eyes, Joohyun with empty, hollow ones. Joohyun stood there, fighting back the nauseating wave of sobs that assaulted her windpipe.

    “Joohyun…” Seulgi finally said, stepping forward.

    Joohyun quickly motioned to close the door, causing Seulgi to step back for fear of getting hit by the wooden block.

    “Don’t touch me.”

    “Joohyun, I’m sorry.”

    “I don’t care.”

    “Please, can I come in?”

    “Why?”

    “To talk.”

    “We don’t have anything to talk about.”

    “But we have to work this out.”

    “We don’t.”

    “You don’t even want to try?”

    “Want to try?” Joohyun repeated, a mock grin coming upon her face. She could feel her grasp on her emotions slipping, “Of course I want to try, Seulgi. You’re the love of my life. But what you did to me… you have no idea how much you hurt me Seulgi. It feels like you took a knife and stabbed me in the heart. It’s worse than Taeyeon. Because you knew. You knew I’d been hurt like that before. And you did it anyway. Why? What did I do to you, Seulgi?”

    Seulgi opened to speak, but instead of words, all that came out was a short, shuddering whimper.

    “I’m so, so, sorry.” she was able to choke out, “You didn’t do anything wrong, Hyun. You’re the perfect girlfriend. And I love everything about you. I don’t know what the I was thinking. I made a mistake. And I’m willing to fix it. In any way I can.”

    Joohyun looked down, pushing her hair away from her face and taking a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself.

    “The thing is, you can’t. I told myself after Taeyeon that I wouldn’t stand for that kind of pain again. I can’t forgive you.”

    “Joohyun, no, please, don’t say that-”

    “But it’s true,” Joohyun interrupted, “As much as I want to forgive you, I can’t. I just can’t. I think with time, I could, but I know that I’ll never trust you again. And I can’t be involved with someone I can’t trust.”

    “N-no,” Seulgi whispered, her expression falling into one of complete and utter defeat, “No, Joohyun, don’t say those things, we’ve together for five years, it’s been an amazing relationship up until now, and-”

    “Yeah, it has,” Joohyun said, the anger now seeping heavily into her words, “And you ruined it.”

    Seulgi began to cry in full, wrapping her arms around her own body and hugging herself like a scared child. Joohyun wanted to comfort her, wanted to take her sad little Seulbear in her arms and cradle her, tell her how much she loved her… But she couldn’t.

    “I’ll text you and let you know when I’m not around, so you can come pick up your stuff. The lease is under my name for the apartment, so I’m gonna need the key back, too. You don’t need to pay your share of the rent this month.”

    Before her former partner could respond, Joohyun shut the door and locked it. She then sat on the couch, hugging herself in much the same way as Seulgi had been, crying into a pillow.

    She received a call from “Kim Yerim” at 5:24am.

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

Thanks for reading<3