Irene felt weightless. Comfortably nestled in her duvet, trying to substitute the inanimate warmth for someone else. Yet, she still felt frozen. Floating alone and lost. Wendy consumed her thoughts. She knew what the younger was doing to herself, she also knew why. She just didn't know what to do. There were things that she wanted to do, but it seems as though that time had passed. An apology would help no one. A confession would only hurt the both of them.

     There was a soft knock at the door, the kind that only one person in the dorm used. She barely registered standing up before she had crossed the expanse of her room, willing herself to calm down. So what if the door had opened unnaturally fast? The reveal looked like a gift from god. Clad in only a towel, Wendy stood starring. "The shower is free; though you'd want to know before the bear claims it."

     Water drops trailed down pale skin, teasing the contours of Wendy's clavicle. Irene had never felt so parched. She felt the words wrap around her, not actually hearing but feeling. The surge of energy buzzing in the pit of her stomach was not comforting in the least. She tried to clear the heat from , "yeah, thanks." 

     Irene had never felt these cravings before Wendy. It only made things more confusing. She was an idol. Handsome men were always apart of the social scene, but she had never wanted to pin them against a wall or better yet be pinned against a wall by them. All of these thoughts had always been neatly tucked away, out of sight and out of mind. She attributed these oddities to the almost constant time she spent with her members. A small part of her insisted that she had never had those thoughts about any of the others. Excuses could only work for so long.

     Any future she had thought of had involved the younger woman, not in a romantic sense but in a familial love. She had envisioned their kids playing together after their retirement, husbands off somewhere. But she had never paid attention to the fact that their imaginary husbands had always remained out of the little scenarios. With closer inspection the children she had imagined looked more like a mixture of Wendy's features and her own.

    The truth caused too much pain. There were too many uncertainties holding her back. This whole thing had been a storm from the very start.

     She had known that the younger was a little different. A fuzzy inkling that Wendy was unlike the people she had grown up around, it wasn't the English or the selflessness. Things later came into focus during the end of their training period, when Wendy paid a little more attention to the female dancers while the rest of the girls drooled over the budding boy groups.

     Then there was Taeyeon. The dashing senior who had managed to steal away Wendy's attention; attention that had been on her. It was more than just admiration, no the fleeting touches and lingering looks screamed otherwise. For whatever reason she had needed those looks to be directed to her alone, she did not lose. Wendy was hers alone. So maybe there were more touches than need be, but she wanted everyone to know.

     She felt herself breaking when she found out that Taeyeon- the personification of her insecurities- had been the one that Wendy had spent that week with. Each mark mocking her, saying that Taeyeon had been the one to have her in the end. The thoughts bringing a stinging pain over her chest. Tears paining patterns over rosy cheeks only to be washed away by the steady patter of the shower.

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      Tension had settled, the worst of the storm over. But it was a far cry from how things were before. Everything that had been established had been blown away in the fallout like dust. All that was left to do was rebuild, which wasn't going to be easy. At least when they had been fighting each other there had been something. Now it was just radio silence. Nothing. They were strangers in the aftermath. There would be no aid for them, it was their problem and it could only be fixed by them.

     Wendy was not naive enough to think that things would get better by just giving it time. She knew that Irene rarely made the first step and she sure wouldn't do so. She was tired of waiting for something; hoping for anything.

     There were things that she had learned from her self destructive storm. One being that going off of the deep end was fun for a time, but it came with resentment and a killer hangover. Two would probably be that pity parties didn't really help anything, it was more self destructive procrastination. That one almost made her chuckle. Yes, watching her life slip through her fingers was a very funny thing indeed. The third thing she had learned was that even after it all she felt the same emptiness. Isn't it amusing? It was all for absolutely nothing! 

     For whatever reason, the stress that had been bubbling under the surface of her skin, had evaporated. Maybe she had finally lost it after years of repression or maybe she was simply beyond the point of caring, either way everything had gone numb again. It was the pleasant sort of numb that washed away unnecessary feelings. It wasn't healthy but it was comfortable, it was now the standard. Some people were scared of change and in a way she was scared too. 

     Rejections had played in her head before, all of them on a scale of awful and detrimental. For those moments when life was especially taxing she allowed herself to indulge in dreams of reciprocation. Small, untouchable fantasies that lapped at her consciousness from time to time. And that scared her. When something is so out of grasp sometimes a person starts to believe the lies that they tell themself. An impenetrable armor made of tempered, steely, lies. Ahelmet of blinding, willful ignorance. Boots made for running, durable enough to last a journey with no destination. Wendy had seen the looks in her direction, she had known the affects of her behavior on Irene. She wished she hadn't because her armor had a weak spot.

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Late update. Life is still pretty wild, more so now. Girls are pretty damn complicated if you ask me. Then again don't ask me cause I have no clue. I'm not a player but right now I could be an Olympic athlete. Things are very weird. But hey it keeps me writing this stuff right?