Seungwan was sitting by the desk in their room, looking out from the tiny window into the night as she pondered over things, many things. Things between Joohyun and herself. There were so many possibilities and Seungwan knew right from the start that this could be a very dangerous escapade for the both of them from the first time she met Joohyun as Wendy. Who was Seungwan kidding? Of course she could tell that Joohyun was infatuated with Wendy. How Joohyun had gasped when Wendy had first touched her. How her skin heated thereafter. How Joohyun would always looked at Wendy with admiration in her eyes. It all felt so absurd. The President who seemed like a person so out of reach to Seungwan actually fell for her other persona, as Wendy.

Wendy… Seungwan began to trace back her memories to the first time she experimented with this persona. It all started when she was in the senior year of middle school, when she was sixteen. Before that time, Seungwan had a really close relationship with her elder sister, Sooyeon, who was three years older than she was. Since they began to understand things, both Sooyeon and Seungwan knew that their lives would be drastically different from the others. It was tough, having to live under the scrutiny of so many people, but with each other as rapports, they fared pretty well.

Sooyeon, being the eldest child, bore the brunt of their parents’ strict upbringing. Everything Sooyeon did was monitored, every friend she made must be approved by their parents, and eventually every breath she took until the very last, was suffocating her. Countless of times, Sooyeon would cry and Seungwan could only offer her solace through her hugs. Seungwan was the perfect younger sister to Sooyeon until she was not.

The first time Seungwan rebelled was when her father had insulted her very best friend when she brought her friend home to study. It was when she was a senior in middle school. Rumours soon began to spread about Seungwan in school during that time as well and people steered clear away from her for fear of Mr Son targeting them. It was maddening and even more so when Seungwan had tried to confide in Sooyeon only to receive useless advices from her elder sister to it up and that it was her own fault for having made friends with someone unworthy of her. Seungwan was baffled by her sister’s comments and from then on, their relationship had only deteriorated.

Over the many years, Sooyeon had been moulded into a person their parents wanted her to be, an obedient daughter, the successor of the highly successful hedge fund owned by them. Meanwhile, Seungwan, after having been isolated from her bunch of close friends, only became more withdrawn and afraid to interact with them. Then, finally, the girl could take it no more.

Seungwan was sixteen the first time she entered a club after having stolen her sister’s identification card. This also marked the onslaught of Seungwan’s bold acts. Being taught music since a young age and coupled with her talents in it, Seungwan had always had interest in dabbling more in this area. Over her growing years, Seungwan had composed many sheet music, but she always felt dissatisfied with merely doing so. It was the trip to the club that made Seungwan realise where her true passion laid in, hip hop music. However, it took two years for Seungwan to finally become Wendy. It was when she first met Jisoo. Wendy had been eighteen and Jisoo was seventeen whilst the club’s legal age entry requirement was nineteen, which meant that they were still underage when they were in the club.

After receiving reports that there were several minors who frequented the club they were in as well as multiple illicit drugs being peddled in the compound, the police investigators decided to conduct an underground sweeping. Seungwan had nothing to be worried about when the investigators checked her since she was still carrying her sister’s identification card, Jisoo however, was an entirely different matter. The girl who was working as a DJ at that time only managed to enter through special connections and such connections would definitely not sit well with the investigators. It was fortunate that Seungwan, at that time, had not only stolen Sooyeon’s identification card but also her sister’s driving license. Learning about Jisoo’s connections since a long time ago, Seungwan found a way to pass the license to the girl who was checked by a separate police investigator. Fortunately, the investigator was careless enough to not have realised their differences and Jisoo was extremely quick at memorising the details from Sooyeon’s card. Since then, the two began their career in the underground music scene as a duo.   

Things then took an ugly turn when Sooyeon found out what her younger sister had been doing all along. That made Sooyeon so furious and Seungwan was certain that her elder sister felt betrayed. Yet, no matter how angry Sooyeon was, she could never tell their parents because she still needed Seungwan to brave through things with her. It was only after Sooyeon’s death that Seungwan felt her sister pitiful. Her sister must have been emotionally broken for having to act like a good daughter but at the same time be envious of her sister’s life that she could not have.

Seungwan was nineteen when Sooyeon took her life, the year when their relationship had turned ugly. It was also right before Seungwan’s first year in university. Sooyeon had been working for their father’s hedge fund for a year after having graduated early from university with stellar grades.

Many said it was the accumulated stress that drove Sooyeon to take such extreme measures however Seungwan knew that there were other reasons. After having discovered her sister’s song lyrics that she had written using her given pen name, Jessica, and carefully examining and dissecting them, Seungwan realised how miserable and alone her sister must have felt. Guilt began to gnaw on and manifest in Seungwan’s heart and mind because she knew that her sister’s suicide was mainly her fault. It was Seungwan’s fault for being unable to help her sister. It was Seungwan’s fault for having been able to live life so uncaringly. Finally, it was Seungwan’s fault for failing as a younger sister.

A failure, that was what Seungwan considered herself to be for the longest time. During that time, Seungwan also gave up on life and if not for the help of her crew members, she was certain she would never be able to pull herself back together. However, due to the lingering guilt, Seungwan decided to segregate her behaviours into two separate personas. She could not allow herself the luxury to have all the fun. It must be required of her to continue where her sister left off; to be a good daughter as Seungwan.

Her thoughts suddenly flew back to Joohyun’s question.

“What is the Seungwan at home like?”

This was a question that Seungwan had questioned herself multiple times. What was her truest, base personality? The answer to this question was only discovered recently by herself. It was undeniably an amalgamation of Seungwan and Wendy’s personalities, to be both ice and fire, to feel nervous and calm, to exercise prudence and display recklessness, at the same time. This, was Seungwan’s base personality. It was an odd blend between the two extremes, depending on how the situation was presented to her and how she determined she was to achieve an outcome.

It was the approaching footsteps from Joohyun that made Seungwan lay down her thoughts momentarily.

“I am done,” Joohyun said as she stuck her head in shyly.

“That took a while,” Seungwan swivelled her chair around as she remarked and beckoned her roommate to enter.

“I was preparing myself to face you as a fellow roommate,” Joohyun said honestly and Seungwan felt the sides of her lips tugging into a smile.

Then, awkward silence passed between the two girls as they figured out how to begin.

“I guess I w