In the morning, Seulgi's elbow brushes up against her own and sends a warm shock down her arm. Seungwan blinks, twice, and continues brushing when Seulgi spits into the basin.

Seungwan had taken it as a given for a while, but they've been flying all over for showcases and award shows the past month, and today's the first time in 23 days that they've woken up next to each other.

Seungwan had gotten up earlier, when sunlight had bled through the gap in their curtains. When she turned, putting weight onto her left arm, Seulgi was still fast asleep, hanging half-open, features gentle under the warm light. Seungwan looked at her shapeless bangs and traces of blue eyeliner she'd half-heartedly scrubbed from her eyes - and then into shades of deep brown: Seulgi staring back at her.

"Ah," Seungwan had gasped, inching backwards, pulling the sheets back with her. "Sorry."

Seulgi's hands found Seungwan's under the sheets, halting her retreat. "For what?"

Seulgi has the most beautiful smile Seungwan's ever seen. Staring, she wanted to say. For my heart -

"Morning breath," she explained instead, making a show of covering with her hand and throwing the covers off her legs.

"You know I don't-"

"Mind, yes," Seungwan said, feeling heat run up her jaw. She turned her face away as Seulgi folded her pyjama sleeves up to her elbows. "I know."



//

Technically speaking, Seungwan met Seulgi while she was growing out of being a teenager. She'd been twenty for a while but not at all, trapped between two countries and lives.

Seulgi only spoke Korean, but she'd heard about Seungwan before they'd met and addressed her as Wendy-ssi, said hello in English and smiled like they were old friends. Seulgi's eyebrows were unkempt that day, but Seungwan never said anything. Seulgi was awkward but uninhibited and looked at Seungwan with something like possibility.

Seulgi-ssi, Seungwan had said, clasping Seulgi's two hands between her own. Seulgi had laughed kindly even though there was nothing particularly humorous. Let's be friends.



//

Seungwan knows there's a history to Seulgi that she'll never quite understand. Only Joohyun-unnie and Yerim will ever come close to knowing it, and sometimes Seungwan finds it difficult to be content.

There are the jokes that go over her and Sooyoung's heads - Sooyoung is the one to be indignant about it, and they make them less and less now, but Seungwan never knows what to say. The laugh that Seulgi reserves for them is different too - familiar and warm all at once, like light is flooding through her veins.

Seulgi figures it out on a Wednesday, where Seungwan had stormed back to their room early after another remark about watching the movie during their trainee days. It was immature of her, surely, but she doesn't know how to suppress everything all the time - especially not with Seulgi.

Seulgi follows minutes later, closing the door behind her and settling beside Seungwan on the sheets. She brings a hand up to Seungwan's cheek, where it hovers, unsure. Seungwan fights back tears, feeling more and more immature by the second. She hates that she's this way, and hates that this is all she can give and all she can take.

"What's wrong?" Seulgi's voice is soft. She sounds tired from their schedules, from an interrupted movie, from a chance to unwind. Seungwan puts burdens on her shoulders like this, unwittingly and unfairly, and already feels sorry for it.

"Nothing - it's -"

"It's clearly not nothing if it's making you so upset," Seulgi insists, and Seungwan doesn't know what to say.

"It -" It comes out as a half-sob, and Seungwan is so silly, silly, silly -

When she looks up, the older girl is staring at her carefully, her hands pillowed right beside Seungwan's on the sheets.

"I never got to experience your trainee years with you," she says, finally. "And when you talk about it, it's like - I feel -"

"Like?"

"Like an outsider," she says, finally, and it's cathartic to let it out. When she looks back up, Seulgi is wearing an exasperated smile. They've talked about this before, about Seungwan moving from country to country, on the outside looking in. Displacement. Seulgi had taught her the word for it sometime over lunch, and Seungwan had smiled, knowing she was understood.

"Should we not talk about it then?"

"No -" Seungwan can feel the heat creeping up her neck, the words coming up short in . "It's - silly -"

"It's not," Seulgi says, and her hands find Seungwan's then, resting gently on them. "I would be upset too. But -"

Seulgi's eyes are warm, and sincere, and genuine, and everything Seungwan has always wanted. Something twists dully inside of her.

"I wouldn't have wanted you to suffer like that," Seulgi says. When she leans in, Seungwan feels the breath leave her lungs. "And we have the rest of our lives to learn about each other."



//

When Dumb Dumb promotions started, they fought because Seulgi didn't know when to stop.

Seungwan was content with talking about the Obama award everywhere she went because people seemed to be impressed by it, but Seulgi interspersed it every two sentences, when Seungwan couldn't understand something quickly enough, when Seungwan had to think twice to figure out how to get through the sliding door in a new building.

She'd let loose at Seulgi somewhere between hair and makeup and their stage at Inkigayo, and Seulgi had fallen silent, mouth shaping into an "O".

"Seungwan," she'd tried, after they'd stumbled off the stage and Seungwan had put on the pants that didn't show off her entire thighs.

Seungwan ignored her.

"Seungwannie," Seulgi bid again, her fingers resting on Seungwan's elbow.

It had been like that as their schedules picked up, as Seungwan stopped eating and slept a lot less: the petty explosions and the unwarranted anger. Seulgi had always been a better person than Seungwan, so Seungwan shook the older girl's hand off and headed for the van.

This is what Seungwan learned about Seulgi:

For Seungwan, she'd wake up earlier than she ever had to buy pancakes home. There was a smiley face printed on Seungwan's when she'd gotten out of bed. The living room was still dark, and Seulgi was struggling wit