Seulgi knows she shouldn’t be staring at beautiful girls with smoke in their hair.

It doesn’t change the fact that she’s an artist who can’t afford to pass up whimsical beauty at dawn, waiting to be captured by eye and made to be remembered.

Her parents have always warned her with steel eyes and brittle tongues to stay away from black sheep and conform with the white, and even then, to keep her head straight and remember who she is, to not get swept up in a tidal wave of childish immaturity because she knows better than that.

They’ve never warned her about purple sheep that beckon silently with their fascinating hue, the kind that glows in hazy dawn’s light on an empty school rooftop, the air wispy and smelling of new beginnings, whispered promises, and cancerous smog.

“Hey, are you okay? Are you lost?”

Seulgi’s confused because this girl has burning embers between her lips and smoke trailing after her every breath, but has the sweet voice of sirens and a warm glint in doe eyes. She’s confused because she’s been brought up to learn that victims of death masked in pretty packaged boxes are grizzled men with stinking breath and yellow glazed teeth.

This girl has silky smooth hair and soft skin with gentle eyes and perfect teeth that sparkle behind cherry red lips still trickling fog like it’s never-ending, spewing from her lungs and seeping from her bones, and curling out from and creeping across her tongue.

“No, I don’t think so.”

The infinitesimal smile that curves her lips and carves crescent moons out of her eyes renders Seulgi breathless, and it’s like she’s suddenly orbiting in space, weightless and free, but grounded all the same.

“My name’s Irene. What’s yours?” she asks.

Smoke has stopped spilling from her lips and she’s grinding out the flame at the burnt end of the stick so the air starts to clear up with the rising ball of gold so Seulgi’s thrown into light and the girl in shadow like polar opposites made to attract.

“Seulgi. My name is Seulgi,” she whispers.

She’s afraid that Irene will float away like the fog that’s all but disappeared with the light breeze that rearranges her hair and tugs at her skirt, but something tells her that she’s more solid than thin vapors of grey, and Seulgi feels something click into place in the chasm of her heart that blows away the dust and turns the cogs so it begins to beat like it’s only now found a reason to.

Irene tilts her head, bird-like in the motion, then pushes off dull metal railings misted from cold, sending it shaking and rattling and ringing to the unsteady beat of Seulgi’s heart, saunters past with a heartbreaking smile the exact copy of the ones of grieving protagonists in the opening scene of every angst-ridden movie.

“I’ll see you around.”

She brushes past softer than the wind, trailing behind her thick, choking grey of tobacco smoke stretching to overwhelm, but beneath it sweeter traces of purple vanilla that struggles to be noticed, and Seulgi can’t help but cheer it on in its long-winded battle, seemingly hopeless, but not yet defeated.

“I will.”

The words are light but the meaning heavy, clinging off of staccato syllables as if they’re a lifeline, and Seulgi wonders what she’s thrown herself into.

~

Seulgi finds her by soles of black sneakers turned grey, treads faded as waves wash away old sand, but holding a kind of allure that doesn’t need anything more than simple existence in a world too full of color.

She’s perched on the edge of a windowsill in a classroom meant to be abandoned, a formless entity living and not yet dead, obscured by wisps of fog from a lit end of a stick that counts down the numbers of her time.

It’s not intentional when Seulgi’s feet dislodge a piece of cracked pavement long overdue to ricochet against a dilapidated wall too ancient for its burden, successful in drawing wandering attention and gentle eyes.

“You again.”

There’s potential for venom in the words, though none emerge, a soft lilt and friendly tone the sole companions for a girl too pure for smoke and cigars.

“I agreed to see you around, didn’t I?”

Delight captures dark, dark eyes, turns them bright like a light switch flicked on and Seulgi thinks she likes the new color scrawled in yellow, always a pleasing companion to black canvas like stars twinkling in midnight sky.

“You did. I see you’re a girl of your word.”

Irene’s rocketing to the ground blaring red: fluttering skirt, whipping tie, whistling wind, shoes hitting cobble, fingers flexed to balance, cigarette lost in wind too strong to withstand crushing pressure, all with pearly whites and crescent moon smiles.

Peace and danger, murky fog and crystalline waters, pallid skin and rosy cheeks, dull blades and shiny metal, black and white, light and dark—Irene and Seulgi.

~

There are fumbling fingers unaccustomed to violence, desperate the way they snatch and pull, nails clashing against skin, whipping away the cigarette balanced between her fingers, curiosity drowning her beneath ash and smoke stubborn to let her go.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”

Irene’s voice is ugly in its cracks and red colored anger so unlike the peace she’s named for, dove turned dragon breathing ice and fire but even then painstakingly aimed not to damage, never to damage.

“Nothing. I was just looking at it. You do it anyway, why can’t I?”

Seulgi’s unprepared for eyes colored blue, drowning, sinking, dying, pain so raw it’s beautiful, replication impossible by paint or shutters on blank canvas or glossy film. She wants to draw it picture perfect, made for museums, a priceless artifact centuries from its birth.

There’s nothing but an exhale, fading footsteps automatically followed like second nature—two footsteps now, side-by-side, and Seulgi waits patiently; she has all the time in the world if it’s meant for Irene.

“Just because I do it doesn’t mean I want other people to do it, too. I’m not proud of this, you know. It’s something I picked up when things were . . . difficult, for me.”

She’s drowning, sinking, dying, Seulgi wants to save her.

“Then why do you do it? Why don’t you just quit?”

The answer seems clear, written in neon and bordered with arrows, an easy solution to bruised purple and melancholic blue that Seulgi wants wiped away to make way for purple vanilla and blue skies.

She knows she’s wrong when darkness seeps through pretty lips in form of laughter, not mocking but self-deprecating, turned away from her as if afraid black would stain her like coal against paper, comedic in that she’s already waist deep in ash, lungs swimming in smoke all for Irene.

“It’s not that easy to quit smoking. I want to, but I’m not strong enough alone. I haven’t found my motivation yet. I’m still waiting.”

The hallways ring empty, footsteps echo, they’ve been walking for miles, for years, for eternity; it’s okay if it means she can walk by Irene.

“Be my motivation?”

“What?”

A hand tousles her hair, lifts her chin so she can catch a pretty smile, then Irene skips away, lighter than air and Seulgi can only follow, just as she’s done since she’d first been tempted by purple haze and raven eyes.

~

Irene kisses her and everything is blank, soaring through space, dodging stars and planets and asteroids—it doesn’t taste like smoke.

She hopes to be her motivation.