Under the third arc of the Hohenzollern Bridge, in the middle of a cold, snowy, moonless night in Cologne, this is where Irene meets Seulgi again after so many years.

She’s perusing rows and rows of padlocks to sate her boredom—her interest barely piqued by the mix of shiny new ones and rusting old hooked on the bridge’s railings, each scribbled with names and dates—when she feels more than hears movement from behind her; smells a certain kind of scent that’s simply impossible because Seulgi is… Seulgi is—

She’s there, standing behind her, in a long black trench coat and dark blue silk overalls that Irene doesn’t remember her ever wearing.

(That fact would have made her heart constrict right on the spot, if she ever had a beating one, because she remembers a lot of things about Seulgi—everything about Seulgi.

And not being able to do so, no matter how miniscule the detail, is incredibly disconcerting.)

“Seulgi,” Irene whispers almost reverently, as if she’s witnessing a miracle unfold as she turns around to face the other woman completely.

She only ever got weak once, when she stopped drinking blood even though she needed it; those two dark, dark weeks that consisted of her refusing to feed and never getting any sleep, too busy starving herself as the news broke out and reached her in Paris.

But now that Seulgi is standing right in front of her, she’s at her downright weakest, her sturdy knees almost buckling and giving away.

Still, Irene’s hand flies on instinct, holding on onto the nearest railing. She has always been quick with her reflexes, more fight and almost never choosing flight. But this is Seulgi, the one person who is capable of disarming Irene completely in the best and the worst of ways, and Irene very much wants to pick a fight with fate for being so inherently cruel.

The way her face quickly crumples prompts Seulgi to step closer, painstakingly watching the years and years of misery and yearning surface all at once in the lines that are now maring Irene’s otherworldly features.

(She doesn’t turn her gaze away. How could she, really, when she did this to her?

When she opted to deal with things on her own rather than immediately find the very reason of her existence.)

Irene feels herself freeze, backing further into the railing even though she’s almost pressed against it without anywhere else to go.

Seulgi must have seen the utter disbelief that swirls in her golden brown eyes, because she stops right by the nearby lamp. Its light hits her perfectly, ultimately giving Irene the chance to see her in vivid detail for the first time in sixty years.

The first time she sees her, and it’s not in her dreams.

Seulgi hasn’t aged since that fateful day Irene left her, that one autumn night in Seoul with the moon casting its glow on Seulgi’s crestfallen face, and she begged her to not do this, please don’t do this.

But it has been sixty years since that day, sixty years since she lied to keep Seulgi safe and alive; fifty nine since Irene had heard the worst news of her very, very long life and grieved every day that came next.

“Seulgi,” Irene repeats, just as reverent as the first. Slowly, her fingers unfurl around the topmost pole of the steel railing, her feet taking a step closer next, towards the greatest and the only love of all of her lifetimes. She lets her eyes roam all over her entire form, drinking her all in like Seulgi is the rarest taste that makes her own blood sing—she was, she is—from the fringe that shrouds her forehead to her blood red lips, and over the visible parts of her now pale skin.

Irene’s eyes widen at that reminder, and if she could gasp, in a lungful of air and hold it in until something makes sense in her head, she would.

She tears her gaze away, bringing it up to meet Seulgi’s dark, dark eyes. Something that’s both familiar and foreign all at once. There are specks of golden brown scattered in them that matches Irene’s own, and the realization of what it actually means makes her voice shake when she says, “Seulgi. Oh God, Seulgi, what did you do?”

Seulgi smiles at her in kind. It hasn’t changed at all. It’s still as bright as Irene remembers—she’s never forgotten—her eyes folding into the same crescent arcs that the moon had waxed into on the dawn Irene kissed her for the first time.

But under this same light, something pointed also glimmers; the glaring change to Seulgi’s soft grin that wasn’t there before.

It’s Seulgi who takes that last step, when it dawns on her that Irene is almost physically incapable of moving anymore closer despite the immense strength her centuries-old bones hold, erasing the scant distance in between them.

She lifts both her hands, cupping Irene’s cheeks, the pad of her thumb grazing Irene’s lips ever so softly. She doesn’t really know whose is colder, her skin or Irene’s, but, that doesn’t really matter now, does it?

Her smile only grows when Irene leans in into her touch, eyes closing to savor the feeling Irene honestly had once thought she’d only get to feel again in the afterlife, in that split second before her soul is taken to a place nowhere near Heaven.

(Her kind is unwelcomed, this, she knows.)

Irene can’t help but nuzzle into Seulgi’s palm, despite the confusion and trepidation written all over her face; terrified of what this night holds and the coming days, after Seulgi has condemned herself into a life that was Irene’s very reason why she left. A life that Irene never wished for her to take.

“I did what I had to do,” Seulgi states. It’s barely a whisper, but her tone is filled with unequivocal devotion that rings loud in Irene’s ears. “I wanted to spend eternity with you.”

i completely blame peek-a-boo for this drabble. xD thank you to everyone who have read, voted, subscribed and commented to all of our stories. they mean the world to us. :')

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