It’s not seduction that lines her limbs.

Seulgi knows all too well what seduction looks like, exposed skin to entice the eyes of the prey and lies spun in gold, smooth and flawless, created for one purpose and one purpose only, to get her into their bed so they could have their way with her.

She’s played victim to it one too many times, falling for the false pretenses of forever and sinking deeper and deeper into the spider’s web that kept her entangled and immobile until the predator made its descent.

And all for her body, for her curves and lines, the desire to run hands over them and let fingers play where no other could, to showcase her as if she were a life-sized trophy and not bothering to discover what lay beneath the thin layer of skin that they prized so much.

But that naivete is no more, and her skin isn’t for anyone’s fingers to touch but her own; iron walls guard a once tender heart, and shoulders, once soft and relaxed, bear a stiffness to them that support the curse of beauty and media popularity.

So, she doesn’t understand this woman who looks every bit the goddess described in Greek mythology with silky black hair and paper pale skin, donning a simple white dress shirt and black jeans, a brown satchel across her chest and resting along her right thigh.

“Would you like to go on a date with me?”

Her voice is as smooth as the surface of a lake on a sunny day, every syllable accounted for and backed with a husky undertone that, if Seulgi hadn’t been so taken aback, would have sent shivers down the length of her spine.

This most certainly isn’t the first time she’s been asked for her hand, the more notable ones being in public spaces with prying eyes and murmurs that managed to slip into her ears and spin like a merry-go-round.

However, she’s never been asked out in the seafood aisle of the supermarket she often frequents, with a plastic bag housing a total of one salmon clutched in one hand and a beautiful woman blocking her route back to her cart stocked with ingredients for tonight’s dinner.

The woman doesn’t seem flirtatious, nor does she seem to recognize her, her eyes, large and dark, are almost emotionless, and her posture resembles that of a soldier’s, though it carries a light elegance that says otherwise.

“Excuse me?” she finally ventures to say, willing her voice to remain steady.

There’s no flash of impatience nor one of embarrassment, and the woman calmly repeats her question: “Would you like to go on a date with me?”

Normally, Seulgi would have brushed the person off and gone on her merry way, the encounter already lost in her mind, flushed away by her anticipation for dinner, but this woman is quite clearly not just another person.

The women she encounters are usually on the extreme sides of the spectrum, either extremely shy or vividly seductive, but never like the woman in front of her now, deeply intriguing and vaguely mysterious.

When the silence between them stretches on for another round of seconds, the woman is the first to act, slim fingers unlatching the buckle of her satchel and deftly extracting an artist’s pen and notebook (she knows because art is her hobby), jotting down what Seulgi’s sure is her number and ripping out the small section of the page and extending it towards her.

“Please give me a call if you make up your mind. I have somewhere to be, so I’ll be going now.”

Then, the woman is turning around and making her way towards the exit, leaving behind only the scent of vanilla and the piece of paper in Seulgi’s hand, as if she’d only been an apparition of Seulgi’s imagination.

That night, Seulgi adds a new contact to her phone: Aphrodite.

~

It doesn’t take long for Joy to notice her lingering fingers and long glances towards her phone as they wait for their turn for the photoshoots.

“Who’re you waiting for, Princess?”

Joy’s words are teasing and her eyes are mischievous, long limbs crossed delicately over one another and a smile playing at her lips, ever the predator for an unwilling victim in her games of conversation.

“No one.”

“Oh, nice name. Is she hot?”

“Park Sooyoung,” Seulgi growls between her teeth, glaring at the younger woman.

She only laughs, loud bursts of noise that doesn’t match her fierce and feminine image as Joy, top model of Star Agency, but fits right in with the Park Sooyoung, Seulgi’s childhood friend, a rebel at heart with evil schemes to match those of Satan himself.

Seulgi had been stowed into the modeling industry by pure luck, having accompanied Sooyoung for one of her auditions only as a pillar of support and nothing more, believing her lacking height enough for her to be easily looked over as a potential model.

However, she had caught the eye of one of the judges, made to take a short walk down the set runway with a spotlight against her and watchful eyes throughout all her awkwardness; being only seventeen then and yet to become comfortable within her own skin.

Miraculously, both she and Sooyoung had managed to make the cut, and Sooyoung had become Joy, and Kang Seulgi had become Seulgi.

The industry had changed them, sprinkled attention and popularity over every inch of their identities, rising higher than any other in their age range like a plane that couldn’t stop ascending, and soon their faces and bodies had been plastered over billboards and on sides of buses.

“Joy, standby please!”

Joy uncrosses her legs with the grace of someone who knows their body and what it’s capable of, elegantly standing from her seat and outstretching a hand towards Seulgi, a smirk pulling at the corner of her lips.

“Well, wish me luck, Princess,” she drawls as if bored, though Seulgi knows that it’s far from the truth.

She takes the proffered hand, a sigh threading its way from between her lips, scanning Sooyoung’s outfit, a crop top and shorts (similar to her own) that reveal too much for anyone to be comfortable with, and clasps their hands together, fingers curling into the crevices of the other’s fingers, an odd kind of handshake that they’d created years and years ago as a silent pact of everlasting friendship in the cruel world of celebrities.

There’s a moment when Sooyoung squeezes, the pressure brief and barely there, almost hesitant, but not quite, and Seulgi knows what it means, we can do this, and she squeezes back and then lets go, watching Sooyoung pick up her persona as Joy, the mask settling with familiarity over her features, and then, she’s strutting towards the flashing cameras and studio lights.

Seulgi eventually picks up her phone, the case, intricately designed and overpriced, sliding into her hand, her thumb swiping to unlock the device and settle her eyes on the contact that had been running through her mind since she’d received it.

Her thumb hovers over the messaging icon, her teeth worrying her bottom lip (a habit she has yet to rid of and the bane of makeup artists’ existences) until she manages to gather enough courage to tap against the screen and stare blankly at the keyboard that slides up, fully functional and awaiting her use of it.

Seulgi’s never been a master of words unless she’s using them as weapons to fend off persistent men who don’t understand the definition of the word ‘no’ or when she’s ordering food, a favorite pastime of her’s.

Even before her rise in popularity, when she was still young at heart and naive, words had escaped in shy mumbles and short fragments that tripped and stumbled over her tongue, never coming out the way she wanted them to.

Writing didn’t seem to help, either, the words just as stubborn as formulating onto paper as they were on her lips, and Seulgi had determined then that words simply weren’t for her, quite unlike how they seemed to be meant for Sooyoung, sentences and monologues dancing and flowing with envied ease from the younger woman’s lips, often directed towards Seulgi to prod and tease, though never too far.

It takes the call of one of the staff members for Seulgi to finally come up with something to send, and it’s an answer that resembles her personality to the tee, throwing it aside when she’s finished pressing send and standing to take Joy’s place in the limelight.

Yes.

~

It’s half past three in the morning when she stumbles into her apartment.

The timing isn’t unusual, quite the opposite, if anything, and although fatigue weighs heavy on her eyelids and her body cries for rest, she’s jerked fully awake by the buzzing of her cell phone, loud in the lonely quiet of her apartment too large for one.

She picks up, expecting the voice of either Sooyoung or her manager, it not being rare for him to fill her in about the next day’s schedules or Sooyoung to complain about one thing or another.

“Hello?” she says, slipping out of her shoes and onto the cool marble of her floor.

“Oh.”

Seulgi nearly drops her phone in surprise, pulling it away from her and staring at the name displayed blatantly across the screen in taunting black letters, the smooth voice (although it had been only one syllable) still ringing in her ears.

Aphrodite.

She somehow manages to return the device to her ear, the combination of cool glass and metal pressing against her skin to remind her that there’s no reason why her face should be as hot as it is now.

“I’m sorry. I seem to have pressed the wrong button,” the voice says, somehow still managing to sound smooth despite the surprise that etches into her tone.

“It’s okay,” Seulgi manages to say, praising the fact that her own voice doesn’t tremble at the edges like it tends to do.

“Were you not sleeping?”

“I could ask the same for you.”

A chuckle rasps against her ear, both husky and light so they create a pleasant harmony for the listener and Seulgi finds herself melting in the melody, even as it dies down.

“So, is the answer still a yes?”

There’s uncertainty that flits along the otherwise steady voice, not enough to be categorized as shy, but enough to be noted, and Seulgi finds it almost endearing to hear.

“Yes.”

There’s a soft sound that she recognizes to be a breath of relief before the voice begins again. “When is a good time for you?”

Seulgi realizes that she’s been standing in the middle of the hallway for a good two minutes now, the marble floor having stolen the heat from her bare feet over the course of that time, and she makes her way towards the sofa instead, plopping down onto it and curling up against one side.

“I think I’ll be free on Friday night,” she says, playing with the fabric of her sweater, glad to be in clothes she’s comfortable with, “And I never got your name.”

There’s a brief silence and Seulgi almost checks to see if the call is still connected, but the voice returns, and albeit a little hesitant, there’s still an answer. “It’s Joohyun. Bae Joohyun.” Seulgi can’t help but think that the name suits the face that belongs to it. “What’s yours?”

She freezes momentarily and contemplates for a few seconds, various scenarios running through her head, and she settles on one. “I’ll tell you on Friday.”

There’s a pause colored in surprise, but it’s quickly replaced by another chuckle. “Fair enough. I’ll see you Friday night, then. Does seven-thirty work for you?”

Seulgi feels a smile curl at the corners of her lips, the fingers of her free hand against the soft cotton of her sweater, and she knows she shouldn’t be smiling.

She’s not a naive little girl anymore, but there’s something about this woman - Joohyun - that makes her want to forget about walls made of iron and thorny defenses that Joy helped in propping up for her own safety.

“Definitely. I’ll meet you then.”

“Good night.”

God, her voice. Seulgi wants to record it and have it play as her ringtone stuck on repeat.

“Good night,” she chokes out, hoping that it’s not too obvious, her odd infatuation with the woman’s voice.

The call clicks to an end and Seulgi sits in the dark for a long while, dreaming of snowy skin and eyes of midnight.

~

Seulgi doesn’t meet Joohyun on a Friday.

She’s walking down a street that’s as familiar as her route home, the more artistically aesthetic part of the city that houses street art from the largest of murals to the smallest of doodles sloppily drawn beside grander paintings.

Aspiring musicians line the street, filling the air with sweet voices and the strum of guitars, singing their hearts out for those who are willing to listen as small children run by and adults linger to watch.

Seulgi loves to visit during evenings, when the sun makes its descent and warm yellow lights that outline jutting rooftops and crisscross in a mesh above passersby heads blink into existence, glowing brightly to replace the shine of the sun.

She’s wearing a black cap and mask, an olive green bomber jacket draped over her white t-shirt, and skinny jeans encasing the length of her legs. She’s glad she’s not as tall as Joy because short people don’t attract attention and no one really knows how small Seulgi really is, eyes lingering just a few seconds over her face then jumping away as they decide that, no, it can’t be her, she’s not that short, and takes steps away from her.

That’s only a small majority, though, and more often than not, Seulgi gets recognized by one person or another, asked for her picture and a signature on the most random places, some that Seulgi never wants to dirty her mind with again.

The photoshoot that had been scheduled today had come to an end much more quickly than anyone had anticipated, and Seulgi had decidedly taken a taxi to this particular street to unwind and allow the ambiance to heal her.

It’s about halfway down the street when she spots the easel propped up in front of a restaurant that she visits occasionally, the dark wood matching its background, and a stool placed just behind it, awaiting its owner.

In all the times she’s been here, she’s never seen that easel, and although newcomers aren’t rare, it still strikes a curiosity in her; and like moth to flame, Seulgi finds herself drifting towards it with vague interest.

But then, there’s a rough hand seizing her wrist and yanking her backwards, her feet stumbling for solid footing, and she’s suddenly facing a man’s broad chest, the scent of cologne pungent to her nose and fear spiking in her veins like wildfire.

“You’re Seulgi, aren’t you? The model?”

His voice is deep and it rumbles in his chest like an animal’s growl, and by the look of him (muscled shoulders and exceeding height), he very well could be one, dangerous and eager for blood.

This wouldn’t be the first time Seulgi’s had to fend off an overeager fan, or a creep like the man in front of her, but it still sends her heart racing and her palms sweating, especially when his hand is crushing her wrist like a doll’s and his eyes scan her like she’s food.

“Let go, or I’ll scream,” she says, false confidence lining her words, masking the fear that she can’t allow to reign free.

“I just want a picture and an autograph, maybe a good . Besides, I can just shut you up.”

His vulgar words send tremors down Seulgi’s limbs, his grip only getting tighter as he pulls her closer, and Seulgi knows that there’ll be bruises blooming purple and blue on her skin when he lets go - if he lets go - and she suddenly wants to cry.

“Now, do you just wanna come quietly with me and have a good time, or do you want to do this the hard way?” he growls, his free hand traveling down the curve of her lower back and lower still.

Seulgi’s on the edge of a breakdown when she’s suddenly being released and tugged backwards in the opposite direction by her waist, her attacker howling in pain and falling to the ground like a tree cut down as a familiar man stands over him, roaring in his bloodied face.

It’s the owner of the restaurant they’re in front of, and despite his enormous frame that stands at a height of six-foot-four, a naturally good natured man who offers Seulgi discounts and free snacks when she enters the doors of his business with a broad smile and gentle words.

The man who had been holding her captive was big, too, but Mr. Choi was far larger and far angrier, easily heaving him up by the front of his shirt and dragging him towards the end of the street where Seulgi was sure cops lay in wait.

The sweet scent of vanilla wafts into her senses and Seulgi only then realizes that the body pressed against her back and the arms around her waist are undoubtedly feminine, the pale skin of soft arms vaguely familiar, and the woman’s identity is confirmed when lips brush against her ear.

“I was expecting to meet you tomorrow, but I suppose this works, too.”

-

A/N: The first chapter of this story. There's a lot that went on and I'm sure everything is a bit foggy, but it will all come to clear. I hope you enjoyed!