Seulgi’s alarm tore her out of her slumber, throwing her into a state of half-consciousness. She reached over, unplugged her iPhone from its charger and shut the alarm off, frowning at the large, white numbers that read “12:01”. She rolled back over, a sharp pain digging into her temples as she did so, entangling herself in a swath of blanket, hiding her weary eyes from the noonday light. She exhaled out of her nose, ignoring her full bladder and roiling stomach, making every attempt to tuck herself back into the blissful unknowingness of sleep.

    Just as she was drifting off again, a sound yanked her into reality.

    “Baby, are you still asleep? It’s already noon. I know it’s a Saturday, but…”

    The voice trailed off, and Seulgi pushed up the edge of her cloth cave to get a look at the blonde that stood in her doorway. It was Joohyun, with her angelic face and her upturned lips, arms cradling a wide tray laden with a delicious breakfast to heal her hungover bear.

    And then, it wasn’t.

    And then, reality came rushing back, a tsunami of pain that made her headache seem paltry in comparison. A knot of dread coiled in Seulgi’s gut, and she could feel her gaze become hard and accusing, as if the woman (who was certainly not Joohyun), was to blame for the monolidded girl’s own fantasies.

    I wonder if she can see it in my eyes. She has to. It’s obvious.

    The woman that stood in her doorway was just a bit too tall to be Joohyun, her hair a duller shade of blonde, her features far off from Seulgi’s hallucination. She was a beautiful woman nonetheless, but her face had a more full beauty to it, with less emphasis on angularity than Joohyun’s.

    Seulgi retreated beneath the covers.

    “Let me sleep, Krystal,” she replied grumpily, knowing it wouldn’t be enough to placate the younger girl, “I’m hungover.”

    “You’re always hungover,” the defeat that seeped from Krystal’s tone almost made Seulgi apologize.

    Almost.

    “You said we would go to lunch with my parents today…”

    Seulgi sat up then, a kind of odd instinct coming over her, one that allowed her to ignore the slothiness and apathy within her bones, an instinct that she was all too familiar with but powerless to stop. She’d dubbed it her “survival instinct”.

    “I know, baby,” Seulgi said ruefully, “Come here.”

    Krystal obeyed, and Seulgi hated her for it.

    The blonde slid right into Seulgi’s arms, gravitated to them like a fly to honey.

    “I didn’t mean to get so drunk last night, honestly,” she cooed as her fingers danced across the sides of Krystal’s head, “You know how I get carried away sometimes. I don’t know my limit.”

    Krystal paused, but Seulgi knew that no accusation of dishonesty would come. The blonde was far too naive to allow her misgivings second thoughts.

    “You didn’t come home until three… do you know how worried I was?”

    She knew. Of course Seulgi knew. But did she care?

    “I’m sorry,” a kiss was planted on Krystal’s brow, a reserved kiss that spoke of distance and unfamiliarity, “You know how my friends are.”

    “Mhm.”

    She didn’t know. Krystal had never met Seulgi’s friends, and never would.

    “But what about lunch with my parents?”

    Seulgi sighed explosively, a sigh of longing.

    “I can still go,” the monolidded girl said slowly, with a tiny lilt that indicated she really, truly, genuinely wanted to.

    She then made to stand up, ceasing halfway through and clutching her head in a convincing display of debilitating pain, one that sent her right back down to the covers.

    It was Krystal’s turn to dote on her now. And dote she did.

    “You poor thing,” she whispered as she caressed Seulgi, holding her tight in an unreciprocated embrace, “It’s okay, we can stay home. I’ll call my mom and dad and let them know you’re too sick to come out.”

    The monolidded girl nodded, wincing slightly as she did so, as if the simple act of moving her head up and down caused her immense discomfort.

    Krystal gave her a kiss on the cheek before hurrying from the room, no doubt intent on telling her parents how sick her darling Seulgi was.

    The monolidded girl sat up in bed, staring down at her hands in contemplative silence.

    It had been over eight months now that Seulgi had moved out of Joohyun’s apartment. It was a quick experience, something that had happened during the day while the older girl had been at work. Bogum helped. It was exhausting, frantic labor, the kind of labor that allowed little chance to register anything else but the task at hand. And that’s the way Seulgi wanted it. No thought, just action. She moved out. They’d said goodbye the night prior, a scene that was still etched into Seulgi’s mind like some horrible engraving. Even now, it was difficult to think about it, about the tears that had been shed. They’d wept together, those two lovers, holding one another close in the early morning blackness. The post- trickles of electric pleasure were still running fresh through their veins, but they mourned nonetheless, knowing that it may have been their final series of bedroom pirouettes, a parting gift of sorts, one that Seulgi considered more of a curse, in retrospect. It was a curse of longing and wanting that hung over their heads as they fought against their tears. Neither wanted to cry anymore, but neither could help it.

    A short break, Seulgi recalled sardonically, A short break to find ourselves.

    They’d agreed not to contact one another until they felt they’d emotionally processed everything that happened, and figured out what the next logical step in their lives would be. Seeing other people was agreed upon as well. But did Joohyun expect Seulgi to find another so soon? Perhaps. Seulgi wasn’t one to stay out of a relationship for long; whether it was something deep and sensual or quick and casual didn’t matter. What mattered was that she wasn’t alone.

    Seulgi could hear Krystal speaking to her parents now.

Poor, sweet Krystal. She was a wonderful girl, one who was kind and loving and selfless. A Joohyun in her own right. Seulgi had likely chosen her for that reason. Or it could have been the millions of dollars she earned working with her father’s electronics company, allowing Seulgi to quit her job and essentially become a stay-at-home mom, sans children, sleeping the days away and drinking the nights away.

    The brunette lay back onto her pillow.

    Every single day, Seulgi contemplated the decision she’d made. Joohyun hadn’t broken it off herself. She’d given her partner the choice. And for what felt like the only time in her life, Kang Seulgi had done the exact opposite of what she wanted to do. It was a fleeting moment of ultimate clarity, one that, in the movies, would have been drawn out, with a heavy period of silence and the tick-tock-ing of an analogue clock in the background while dramatic music swelled to a full crescendo. But life wasn’t a movie. Her brain had worked fast, those neurons firing at full capacity, relaying the message to and releasing the words within seconds of the prompting question.

    “You’d be better off without me.”

    Seulgi mouthed to herself as she reminisced, just as she’d done so many times before.

    Had she made the right decision?

    Her heart didn’t seem to think so, but her mind knew better. Her mind knew her all too well, knew her selfish, wanton habits, knew that she would continue to hurt Joohyun. At the time, Seulgi wasn’t what Joohyun needed. She wasn’t a soulmate that would help elevate her partner to new heights, she was a plague that would drag them both down through her hubris. And wasn’t her whole relationship with Krystal a prime example of that? Of her garish tendency toward strict self-serving, no matter the cost?

    When it came down to it, down to the nitty-gritty matters of love, Seulgi always got what she wanted. Whether it was through deception or genuine displays of affection, it ended the same. She chased her target relentlessly, and didn’t stop until she’d won it. And it had finally come back to bite her in the .

    Seulgi reached over to her phone again, unlocking the screen and opening up her contacts. From there she scrolled all the way to the bottom, to the final name in the list, edited so that it wouldn’t appear to her under normal circumstances.

    “Z - Bae Joohyun”

    People could change. Of that much, Seulgi was sure. It mightn’t happen overnight, or even in a month, or even in eight months. It might never happen. But it was worth a try.

    Krystal had ceased her conversation, and light footsteps premonissed her arrival.

    Seulgi’s thumb hovered over the name for a second before she closed the app and locked her phone.Her final thoughts on the matter came as her girlfriend opened the door, holding a glass of water in one hand, two Advil in the other.

    Not today, she thought as she swallowed the pills, Maybe someday. But not today.

***

    The taxi ride from LA international airport into the city was slow and jerky, a series of complex traffic patterns combined with high volume creating a nightmare for motorists, one that reminded Seungwan far too much of the streets of Seoul. It was a swelteringly hot day, so much so that the young doctor had already been wiping the sweat from her forehead as she’d stepped into the car. She had no idea how the cabbie had managed to heft all of her luggage into the trunk without dying of hyperthermia, but she made a mental note to tip him some extra for his efforts.

    The drive was close to two-hours long; despite the fact that it was eleven in the morning on a Thursday, there were several accidents that impeded their progress along the way. It gave Seungwan time to appreciate the hilly California landscape, with its lush greenery and varied architecture. Compared to the sometimes drab, overly-artificial sprawl of buildings that was her former residence, it was a refreshing change. And a refreshing change was exactly what she’d been searching for when she’d decided to move to America. A job as a university professor along with per diem employment as a physician at a pediatric urgent care clinic earned her roughly eighty-percent of her previous salary, but that was alright. She thought it was worth it.

Besides, it wasn’t like the change was permanent anyway. She’d rented a home with another woman (one who was, coincidentally, also from Korea), and the lease would be up in six months, at which point she’d have the option to renew it and continue her stay, or move back home. Either way, she looked forward to whatever awaited her in this new country.

After much frustration (and not without at least a few curses from her dutiful driver) the taxi finally exited the congested route 60, pulling into the flatly green suburb of Walnut, located in a valley smack dab between two separate sets of mountain ranges. Seungwan could only recall the name the of the southernmost one - the Puente Hills - which were smooth and sloping, unlike the northern range, which was more peaked and monolithic. She was dropped off in front of a two-story home, one that was brazenly American, with its neatly trimmed lawn, colorful garden and sunbleached rafters.

    The car sped off into the distance as Seungwan dragged her luggage down the hot blacktop driveway, small body unable to efficiently pull the close to seventy-five pounds of weight she was attempting to move.

    Luckily, midway through this endeavor, the front door of the house opened.

    “Seungwan!”

    Out of the door popped a tall young woman with short hair and a unique face, one with plump lips and handsome, nearly boyish features. The woman ran over to the doctor like an old friend, with smooth gliding movements that suggested great physical ability. She greeted Seungwan with an embrace that was friendly and brief.

    “Jeongyeon,” Seungwan said with a smile, “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

    “It’s nice to meet you too, Dr. Son,” the younger girl then scooped up some of Seungwan’s luggage, “Let me help you with your bags.”

    “Call me Seungwan… and don’t worry about that, I can carry them.”

    “Come on, doc,” Jeongyeon said with a wide, bubbly smile over her shoulder, “I saw you struggling outside. It’s fine. I’ve got this.”

    She then offered Seungwan a wink, causing the older girl’s mind to draw a complete blank as her new housemate easily hefted her luggage and hurriedly brought them inside.

    Seungwan followed, now able to move at an acceptable pace, unburdened as she was. She noted that Jeongyeon had gone out of her way to take the heaviest items.

    Wendy found herself stepping into a modestly decorated interior, one that was, like its outside, arranged in a way that mimicked the doctor’s idea of western decor. She didn’t mind. The subtle shades and ergonomic use of space was familiar and pleasing to her.

    “Welcome to my home,” Jeongyeon said, spinning around with a flourish, “I hope you’ll like it here!”

    “I think I will,” Seungwan replied thoughtfully, and she wasn’t lying.

***

    The sharp, staccato report of keystrokes filled the room as Bae Joohyun typed away, her face illuminated with the blue-white glow of her laptop screen. Her lips were set into a hard line of concentration, pupils darting back and forth as she followed her cursor’s rapid journey across the document. The words flowed from her without effort, though she took long pauses between bursts of inspiration, pauses that involved her pressing two fingers against her upper lip and staring intently at the screen as the gears within her brain turned.

It was during one of these pauses that Joohyun happened to glance over at the time.

2:34am.

Good. It was still early. She had plenty of time to finish the chapter she was working on. Her readers would be pleased.

When Joohyun’s therapist had suggested she take up creative writing as a hobby in her freetime, she’d nearly scoffed at the man. It had seemed mundane to her, something that was reserved strictly for creatives, with no place in the mind of a scientific person.

Lord, was she wrong.

It had started with a random story idea she’d had during some downtime at work, one that she just so happened to scribble down in her notebook. This had then evolved into a three-hour post-shift writing session, one that was sloppy and wild, with jumbled thoughts and plot points. It had been messy, but cathartic.

She’d been doing significantly better with managing her depression at the time, but writing seemed to speed up the process twentyfold. So she continued. She wrote about nothing and everything at the same time, churning out page after page, her stories growing better and better by the day. It was like an addiction that fed into itself. Eventually, she decided to share her stories with the world on one of those freelance writing websites, and to her pleasant surprise, she’d received a great deal of praise. This only served to add more fuel to the flame, and here she found herself, on her day off, ten-thousand pages into her latest piece of work. This story was her most personal so far, telling the tale of a girl who, after learning about her boyfriend’s infidelity, turned to alcohol and drug use in order to cope, ultimately leading to her untimely death.

She knew it was cliche, and far too close to real life, but her readers online didn’t have to know that. All they knew was that Joohyun was an excellent wordsmith, and her descriptions left them enthralled and constantly yearning for more.

And, though the nurse failed to realize it, it was the first time she was willing to publicly address the events that had taken place following her discovery of Seulgi’s unfaithfulness.

    Besides writing, Joohyun had taken up a few other hobbies as well. She frequently went hiking with a few of her co-workers (including Yerim and Sooyoung), and had started taking dance classes every week. She visited her parents much more often, at least twice a month. Physically and mentally, she felt the best she’d felt in years.

    And still, there were times, in the dead of night when she was taking a break from her writing, or in those silky twilight hours before she was able to fall asleep, when her mind would wander into the spiralling tangles of her past, inevitably drawing her back to the object that represented such complex emotion that, at times, it overwhelmed her.

    Seulgi.

    The pain of losing her true love (and, at this point in her life, she was able to affirm that Seulgi was indeed, her true love), was still present. Joohyun knew that it probably always would be. Those chubby cheeks and thin, twinkling eyes tickled at her dreamscapes like a gaggle of apparitions in the night. Her therapist had assured her that this was normal, all part of the grieving process, and that, in time, they’d stop. That made Joohyun a little sad.

It wasn’t as if this was a definitive end for them. It was a break. Some time to rest and regroup, think over their lives and discover where they wanted to end up, and if their relationship was part of that future.

Eight months was a long time.

Joohyun knew that, eventually, Seulgi would reach out to her. It could be tonight, it could be tomorrow, it could be two years down the road. But it would happen. They would speak again. What would Seulgi think of her ex-girlfriend’s new hobbies? She thought Seulgi would approve of them. Was Joohyun the same person she’d been eight months ago? She highly doubted it. Was Seulgi the same person she’d been eight months ago? Joohyun hoped not. But there was no way to tell.

The nurse took an absent minded sip of her coffee.

There was no point in forcing it. Seulgi would speak to her when she was ready. And until then, Joohyun could do no more than continue living her life. There wasn’t any sense in waiting around. Her days of waiting were over.

Joohyun went back to writing, a small, hopeful smile set on her lips.

***

    Sooyoung’s hands trembled, a fine sheen of sweat coating the surfaces of her palms. She bit down on her lips, eyes wide and somewhat frantic, an inkling of strain beneath the dark pupils as the doctor struggled to see in the dark.

    It was almost comical; the level of precision and swiftness required for the task before her was far lower than those asked of her at work. Stitching up stab wounds, inserting intra arterial catheters into crimson-caked aortas, jamming thick plastic tubes between the ribs of a hiccupping, sobbing nineteen-year old. But these things - such trivial things, in the broad scope of her time on this planet - were cakewalks compared to what she faced now. Standing in a dark kitchen at ten forty-two in the evening, carefully pouring out fine powder, stealing glances at the bedroom door, hoping, praying that it wouldn’t open, knowing that at any moment it would, and that she’d be found out. She wore a mask of concentration as her hands - those trembling hands - doled out the exact amount she would need.

    Just as she’d stooped down to the counter, eagerly wanting to confirm that she’d indeed set everything up correctly, measured it all out to a hair, the lights . She spun around with a gasp, her raven hair sweeping across the granite surface, a rogue elbow brushing against the powder-filled container, sending the cup tumbling to the tiled floor.

    Its tinkling crash rang out through the room, drowning out the small shriek that escaped from the startled newcomer’s lips.

    The lights clicked on, and a pajama-clad Sooyoung froze, crouched among a minefield of shattered glass, mouth agape in horror.

    Yerim took in the situation, police-like in her scanning of the dirty countertop, of the cracked eggshells, of the half-empty carton of milk, of the puffy white cloud that had drifted up from the wreckage of the shattered measuring cup, of the upended bag of granulated sugar.

“Don’t move,” Yerim commanded, and Sooyoung obeyed.

The nurse sighed and ran her hands through her hair as she walked to the front door, grabbing a pair of unmatching flip-flops and sliding them over to her trapped lover. Then, she made her way back to the bedroom, returning a few seconds later with a broom and a dustpan.

“Uhh… Happy anniversary?” Sooyoung inquired, slipping on the footwear as her partner swept.

“It’s not even our anniversary yet,” Yerim replied groggily, though with a restrained amusement, as if she recognized the comedy of the whole situation but was reserving her laughs for later.

Sooyoung suddenly seemed to remember herself, and placed both hands on the shorter girl’s shoulders. Yerim straightened up and met the doctor’s eyes, her mood (along with the corners of ) lifting as she was able to appreciate her girlfriend’s chubby cheeks in close proximity.

“I know… and I wanted to bake you a cake while you slept. I even bought strawberries to put on it for you, since they’re your favorite. I wanted to surprise my princess.”

Sooyoung gestured to the container of fresh strawberries beside her, the lid covered in sugar from her mishap.

Yerim’s smile widened, and she stood on her tiptoes in order to give the taller girl a quick kiss.

“You do know it’s our anniversary, right? As in, both of us,” Yerim chuckled as she went back to sweeping, “You don’t need to cater to me.”

Sooyoung shrugged as she effortlessly plucked the broom from Yerim’s hands.

“Yeah, I do,” the doctor got to work then, each of the broom clumsy and slow, as if she was unfamiliar with how the tool was meant to be used.

Yerim watched in amusement, shaking her head and leaning up against the countertop.

“I’m not some gift from God,” the nurse scoffed, reaching over and grabbing one of the strawberries by its stem, “I’m just a golddigger nurse who latched on to the rich attending physician at her job.”

“Is that what people say?” Sooyoung’s tone shifted from jocular to icy.

Yerim was unperturbed.

“Probably, right? I mean, it’s the first thing I’d think of. Maybe not worded like that though,” Yerim offered the remainder of the half-eaten strawberry to Sooyoung, who allowed the nurse to feed her, letting out an uncharacteristically saccharine noise of satisfaction that made the younger girl snort with laughter.

“I hate when you do stuff like that.”

“What? You don’t think I could be an idol?”

Sooyoung followed up her sentence with an exaggerated flourish of her hair, using the back of her free hand to frame her face as she beamed toothily.

Yerim would never admit that it turned her heart into a fluttering mess.

“Nope. You’re too rude and smart for that.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Sooyoung resumed her work, “So, back to the gold digger thing-”

“What does it matter what people think?” Yerim’s question genuine, with no hint of sarcasm or mocking.

It made Sooyoung happy.

“It doesn’t matter to me. Not if it doesn’t matter to you.”

Yerim watched as the doctor continued to clean up the kitchen. No, it didn’t matter to her, not one bit. Not now, not when she’d heard one of the nurses whispering it to a doctor last week, not ever. If Yerim had wanted to date Park Sooyoung strictly for her money, she would have quit her job a long time ago. She wouldn’t have spent countless hours awake some nights, watching as Sooyoung slept, scattered memories of the older girl’s withdrawals dancing eerily through her head, keeping her awake and alert, keeping a tiny hint of paranoia in her mind, always on the lookout for any suspicious behavior. Her thoughts wouldn’t constantly be occupied by the sight of Sooyoung’s face, or the sound of her laugh, or the softness of her hair, or the shadow-casted form of her bare body in the moonlight.

Yerim watched with the hopelessly infatuated gaze of a schoolgirl, even as Sooyoung clumsily dropped the broom several times, and had to be guided on how to pick up the smaller shards that had made their way beneath the lip of the counter.

Park Sooyoung.

The woman who had dubbed her “Princess”, who had showed her love in the most vulnerable time of her life, who had taught her what it meant to feel wanted. The woman who completed her.

No, Yerim didn’t care about her money. Park Sooyoung could go broke tomorrow and Yerim would still love her unconditionally. She could quit her job and choose to become a gypsy, if it fancied her; Yerim would still love her unconditionally.

Sooyoung finally got the floor cleaned up and joined Yerim on the countertop, the tips of her toes brushing the floor as she dangled her legs back and forth. The doctor gave Yerim a long stare, one that was scrutinizing and critical. Then, she spoke.

“What’s on your mind, Kim Yerim?”

Yerim shrugged.

“You.”

Their hands wove together then, an unconscious gesture on both of their parts.

“Well I was thinking of something else,” Sooyoung said with a whimsical grin, “I was just thinking of all the time I spent studying back in school. All the sleepless nights, the days I’d forget to eat because I was working or studying so hard… even after that, I dedicated all my time to medicine. Learning my craft, practicing it, perfecting it… I remember there was this moment, a few weeks into me doing for the first time, when I had worked twenty hours in a row. I was supposed to be doing a twelve, like usual, but eleven hours in there was a bus collision. Forty-eight passengers. You probably saw it on the news.”

Yerim nodded, mesmerized.

“There was this one patient, a twelve year-old girl, who’d been impaled with a shard of metal. Right through her abdomen. I insisted on being involved in the case, even though it was trauma. It was pediatric, so I remember Dr. Son being there too. We didn’t speak much. There wasn’t time to speak.”

Sooyoung looked down at her lover’s hand, running a single thumb over its back with tender care.

“That’s the hardest I’ve ever worked. I pushed my mind and body to their limits. I gave it all I had. We spent three hours in the trauma bay, doing surgery. She didn’t make it.”

“I’m sorry,” Yerim whispered, running her free hand along the curve of Sooyoung’s cheek, “You tried, Sooyoung. That’s all that matters.”

“Is it?” Sooyoung asked softly, “Is that all that mattered to her mother, who stood outside the bay the whole time? Is that all that mattered when I stepped out from behind that curtain, my gown still covered in her daughter’s blood, the look in my eyes alone telling her that it wasn’t enough, that we’d failed?”

The doctor shook her head. Yerim didn’t know what to say.

So she didn’t say anything. She supported the older girl with silence.

“I went home that morning, and I slept for thirteen hours. And then when I woke up, I cried. I got drunk, I got high, I did everything I could to push away the pain. They gave me a short leave of absence from work and even a little certificate for my efforts in the whole operation. I saved so many lives… but I’d lost some in the process, too. There are some patients that never really leave you… you know that. She was one of them.”

“What brought all this up?” Yerim asked, “Why now?”

“Because back then, I wondered if it was all worth it. If all of my efforts - not just from that night, but in general - were really worth it. If the culmination of my work would just be heartbreak and devastation and loss. If there was no light at the end of the tunnel. If there was no happily ever after. Some people live, some people die. I know that, I knew that then. But does that make it okay? In my mind, the deaths always outweighed the victories. The victories of the living don’t matter to the deceased.”

Once again, Yerim had no response.

“It was a question that I never could answer. But just now, out of the blue, while sweeping sugar and glass off my kitchen tile, I realized something. It sounds unrelated, but it really is the answer I was looking for. There’s a happily ever after. A reason to continue working, moving forward, in spite of all the pain, when I come home at the end of a shift, those regrets won’t linger any longer. Because I have something there to make me see the positive. See the lives I saved. That’s you, Yerim.”

Sooyoung’s voice cracked for the first time in her monologue, and she looked at the younger girl with such an intense stare that it was difficult to return.

“You’re the light at the end of the tunnel. You’re my happily ever after.”

Yerim swallowed.

The words were simple and brief after such a lengthy diatribe, a halting conclusion that dropped itself into air, hanging there with finality that left the nurse speechless.

Sooyoung looked back down at her feet, which were still making short crescents as they hung above the floor, giving her the appearance of a nervous child awaiting a response from their crush. She only looked up again when she heard Yerim sniffle.

“Princess?” she asked, hands moving to frame the sides of her beloved’s face, “You alright?”

The younger girl drew close, pressing their foreheads together and inhaling deeply as fresh tears escaped from between her lids.

“I love you. So. ing. Much.”

Yerim’s tone was terse, the sound of a woman on the verge of breaking into sobs.

Sooyoung smiled.

“I love you too.”

They kissed. Yerim initiated it, pulling Sooyoung in hard, her loins already aflame, their lips and tongues smacking loudly against one another.

They both wanted to lose themselves, to run away to that land of everlasting bliss together, to titter the night away with crashing pink waves and receding white tides that lapped at their bodies as they shared warmth and breath and life.

But they didn’t.

Instead, they slunk off of the counter and returned to Sooyoung’s prior work.

The cake wasn’t going to make itself, and they had all the time in the world.

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

After forever... it's finally finished.

Thanks for everyone who read along, upvoted, and commented. To be honest, I know this ending might not make a lot of you guys happy (I'd even say the majority of you guys) but I decided that plot-wise, it was for the best. It only made sense for Seulrene to take a break. And there's at least hope for them in the future. But I'll leave that up to your guys' interpretation.

I tried to offset the bitterness of Seulgi's ending with Joyri's. I hope it helped.

Although I recently ended "Peek-a-boo" and it was real emotional for me, for some reason I was surprised when this made me feel the same. It feels like closing a chapter of my life, and saying goodbye to some old friends that I knew really well. Who knows, maybe I'll revisit them at some time in the future. It's fittingly bittersweet.

Let me know your thoughts. I'll try to actually respond to all your comments, even the inevitably hateful ones (;

Thanks for reading<3