A/N: Apologies for the delay, but it's here now! Overwhelmed by the response to the last chapter - some people calling it a masterpiece or their fave fic on AFF etc. Honestly means the absolute world to me, like you guys don't even realise.

Anyway, comments and discussions welcome as always. Much love <3

One more chapter left until this story comes to an end. It's been a ride so far. Hope you guys enjoy reading as much as I have writing :)

Enjoy!

XVII. DIE FOR YOU

"Just know that I would die for you, baby I would die for you."

There was no articulation for what she felt nor would there ever be and so with her eyes closed she pulled Seulgi closer and they kissed until they could kiss no longer and they savoured each other and desperate they were and both crying and cold and alone and alone together and when they pulled apart they stood watching each other, lips slightly parted, neither quite knowing what to say, so damp and flustered and bitter in the dark calling of that night. When Seulgi smiled she smiled. When Irene smiled Seulgi laughed. They held each other again and Irene said kiss me please kiss me and Seulgi did kiss her and they kissed for a long time again and behind them the streets seemed as if tethered by some body electric to come alive and the lights like the last lights so bright and so obtrusive and passing down upon them in some vista of gold against which they kissed and kissed and they would never stop.

Irene studied Seulgi closely. She studied all Seulgi was and all she had become and all they shared and did not share and were yet to share and she knew in that moment like she had never known anything else that she would never leave Seulgi again, that they would be together for as long as Seulgi could stand her and maybe a long time after that, too, that they were tied again, bonded at the soul by this burgeoning love they shared for one another. This unguided spirit and how it soared. I love you. I love you I do Seulgi I love you.

Seulgi laughed. She wiped her forehead and wiped the rain from her eyes and laughed again and she was crying.

‘What?’ Irene said.

‘Nothing. It’s nothing.’

‘No, go on.’

‘It’s just…I don’t quite know what to say.’ She laughed again and looked away. Out to the night. Where in shadow did small boats skim like spectres on a black river. ‘It’s funny,’ she said. ‘I didn’t expect this.’

‘Expect what?’

‘This. Any of this. You.’

‘Didn’t expect me?’

‘Not like this.’

‘Well how did you expect me?’

‘I don’t know,’ Seulgi said. ‘I honestly have no idea. I just came anyway.’

‘Why?’

‘Why did I come?’

Irene nodded.

‘I don’t know,’ Seulgi said. ‘I just knew in my heart that if I didn’t come then I’d never see you again. I don’t know why I thought or knew that. I just did. I just knew somehow that it would be the last chance I’d ever get to tell you exactly what’s wrong. To tell you just how much I ing miss you and how much you mean to me.’

‘You’re being very soppy.’

Seulgi giggled. Irene listened to that sound. Light and soft and childlike. She listened and she played it again and she imagined all the ways Seulgi’s mouth would or could curl into a smile to make that exact noise and she listened to how good it sounded so close to her, how pure and how human. How much like the Seulgi Seulgi had for so long wished to be. Wished to be normal again. To laugh and smile like that. When Seulgi looked back at her she was almost crying.

‘What?’ Seulgi said.

‘Nothing.’

‘You’re crying.’

‘So are you.’

‘Yeah, but I’m a mess.’

Irene laughed. She pulled back a slight and wiped her eyes. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘So am I. More than you know.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. Really.’

‘How?’

‘Want me to tell you?’

Seulgi nodded. Irene said nothing. She studied the fall of the night over the world. Like a fold of some dark crease in the cosmos, inescapable. She watched the cityslick streets and the gothic harps of the doorways and the windows where ert light crept like some sourceless form over the black of the towered world and the streets slushed up in rainwater and all so loud around them and she smiled. It all felt so immediately different. As if some other form of the universe had come upon her. There was none of that same alien world she had so often loathed to be a part of nor the same dim hum or buzz of some life she felt detached from. There was something else. As if Seulgi had altered it entirely. As if the world had been reduced to its basest parsable objects and had reformed in the image of Seulgi, of all she was, this beautiful and pure creature, the love of Irene’s life, of all her lives, as if in her truths and her bared words she had unlocked within Irene something that had been hidden for a long time, perhaps ever, a new and exciting thing, a simmering flame in the pit of her gut, a sort of childish nervousness, this boundless agenda by which she was drawn towards Irene and could never again be separated. She was everything. She was Irene’s world and world entire.

‘Can we go somewhere?’ Irene said. She was almost crying again.

‘Sure,’ Seulgi said. ‘Where?’

‘Back to yours.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

Seulgi smiled. ‘Okay. Let’s go.’

They walked hand in hand through the rain and they did not say anything and it was good like nothing had ever been good before. It was a silence better than any noise and it was untouchable and together they were something different, some archon of strange and incunabular feelings, a giddy joy between them like school children, stealing glances and smiling knowing smiles and laughing amongst one another and wiping the rain from their brows and taking each step in slow and settled harmony, navigating the herringbone in the dark by the streetlamps like blind women searching for an answer. It took them more than an hour to come upon Seulgi’s and when they did they went in and across the lobby still hand in hand and up in the elevator in silence and when they were inside they kissed again and they did not part for a long time.

They trailed water through the kitchen like pilgrims rescued from a storm and by the time they were at the table they were still kissing, hands roaming across cheeks and to the back of each other’s neck and down over their stomachs in eager and desperate trails, both shivering with the cold, both warmed utterly, both smiling against the other’s lips. Seulgi pulled back and Irene sat down and they shared another smile.

‘What did you want to come back here for?’ Seulgi said. Irene shrugged. She looked up at Seulgi standing there over her, hair tangled over her face, brow slick with sweat, so utterly ruined and yet so pretty as to remove her breath from her. ‘I don’t know,’ Irene said. ‘I just did. I’ve got a lot I want to say.’

‘Yeah?’

Irene nodded.

‘Me too,’ Seulgi said. She smiled again. ‘Want something to drink?’

‘Something warm.’

‘Coffee okay?’

‘Coffee’s fine.’

Seulgi set on the pot and made two cups and came back and sat across the table. She blew softly on her coffee, the steam coiling about the rim, small helical patterns so delicate in the scarlet light. Irene watched her in silence. How each action was so different from the last and yet so effortless. She had every making of a model and always had. They savoured the coffee and when they were finished Seulgi made them some more and they sat stealing glances as if caught in some scandalous affair over the rim of their cups, one and then the other, and the city behind them played like a silent film of colours all washed out, a palette of dull yellow beset with storm or tempest. And the storm inside of some other variety. Irene looked up. She saw Seulgi there smiling and she smiled herself and in some way it hurt to do so, hurt to see Seulgi like that, that small and uncountable joy on her quiet face, so very different from how Irene had known her before, so aching in its simple beauty. And so rare. So unlike what Seulgi had become. If only I could see it every day, Seulgi. If only I could make you smile like that forever. That’s what I want. I want to love you. I want you to know that. I want you to be happy and I want you to succeed as much as I want to succeed and I want us to be good together. I want to see you smile like that every day. I do, I do.

When they had almost finished their coffee again Seulgi set her cup down and leant back. She seemed to be weighing up some heavy option and she did not speak for a long time and when she did finally she said, in a small voice, ‘Thank you.’

‘For what?’ Irene said.

‘For everything. For putting up with me.’

‘Putting up with you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘For realising how ed up I am and still sticking by me.’

‘You’re not ed up.’

Seulgi shook her head. ‘I am,’ she said. ‘I know I am. I have been for a long time and I feel like I’m repeating myself when I keep saying it but it’s true. It’s what defines me at this point, more than probably anything else. The fact that I’m such a mess. That my life has gone off the rails and I need to get it back. It’s basically a character trait.’

She smiled and Irene knew immediately it was not a smile she liked seeing. It was a smile of such intense sadness, a hollow raise of her lips where naught spoke but in her eyes the tableau of some unbearable misery that had come to haunt her. It told her more than words ever could that this was a girl who was hurting, this was a girl who had been robbed of her childhood and locked into a world she did not belong in or want to belong in and left there, with nobody to turn to and nobody to help her. It told her everything she needed to know and Irene did not like it one bit. Help me, it said. I need help. I’ve needed help for a long time and I don’t know what to do anymore.

‘Don’t say that,’ Irene said. ‘Please.’

‘What?’

‘That you’re a up. Don’t say that.’

‘Why not? It’s true.’

‘Because I don’t like hearing it. I don’t like it when you say those things about yourself, even if you think they’re true. It doesn’t do you any good.’

‘It’s just the truth. I’m just being honest.’

‘I don’t care.’ Irene set her cup down. ‘All it’s going to do is remind you that you’ve been through a lot of that you never wanted to go through. It’ll weigh you down and after a while you won’t be able to escape it. You’ll feel responsible for it, responsible to it. You’ll end up telling yourself it’s a part of you so much that it’ll actually become a part of you. And then you’ll never escape it. I don’t want that for you. I don’t want that to become you. I don’t want to see you like that.’

‘Why not?’

‘What?’

‘Why don’t you want to see me like that?’

‘Because I love you.’

Seulgi laughed. She took her mug and finished the last of her coffee and smiled but she was silent. Irene looked at her. ‘What?’ Irene said.

‘What?’

‘Why are you smiling like that?’

‘Like what?’

‘Like that.’

Seulgi shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It’s just weird hearing that.’

‘That I love you?’

‘No. I mean, not really. A lot of people have said that to me.’

‘A lot of drunk people, you mean.’

‘Yeah. And before you ask – yes, I’m ashamed of that. It’s not the sort of I ever want to do again.’

‘I was one of those people.’

‘What?’

‘Those drunk people,’ Irene said. ‘Don’t you remember the first time I said it? You said I was drunk.’

‘In all fairness you were actually drunk.’

Irene laughed. ‘Alright,’ she said. ‘I guess I was. But I wasn’t lying.’

‘Have you always been a hopeless romantic?’

‘Always.’

‘Knew it.’

‘Anyway, why’s it weird?’

Seulgi leant back. She rubbed her arm absently and crossed her legs and uncrossed them again and she would not look Irene in the eye. A sort of sheepish innocence come across her. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how to say it without it sounding stupid.’

‘It’s not going to sound stupid.’

‘I mean, I don’t know how I can word it. A lot of people have said they love me before but when you say it, it feels different, you know? Like, it sounds like you actually mean it.’

‘I do mean it.’

‘Like you actually care for me or something.’

‘I do.’

‘Care for me?’

Irene nodded. ‘Of course I do.’

‘You’re not lying?’

Irene just looked at her for a minute. It came to her suddenly that it was perhaps the first time Seulgi had heard such a thing in as many years as she could count. That her life was so filled with false platitudes and half-hearted friendships in the name of exposure or fame or fortune that she had no reference with which to balance the real against its opposite. That somebody like Irene was an anomaly to her. Somebody to actually look after her. To watch her and watch over her and worry about her and how she felt. To call on her and ask about her and take interest. To be real with her. To be human. She studied Seulgi’s face and in those eyes she saw twinned an incalculable sadness that it hurt to observe.

‘I’m not lying,’ she said. ‘Why would I lie?’

‘I don’t know,’ Seulgi said. She bit her lip. ‘It’s just not often I hear something like that and someone actually means it, you know? Sad as that sounds. It’s kind of rare, honestly. I’m so used to people taking what they want from me. It’s been that way for years.’

‘I’m not lying, Seulgi. Honest.’

Seulgi smiled. ‘Want some more coffee?’ she said.

‘I’m alright. Bit cold, though.’

‘Me too. You want a shower? I’ve got some spare clothes you can borrow if you like.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah. I reckon they’ll fit you okay.’

Irene nodded. ‘Alright,’ Seulg said. She disappeared into the bedroom and came back with a white camisole and a pair of pyjama pants and handed them to Irene and Irene showered and dried herself and came back out smelling no longer of rainwater or dust and then Seulgi did the same. When they had both finished they sat back in the kitchen, obscured partway by red light and watching each other carefully and smiling and neither speaking for what was there to say? And of what consequence? Better to sit and smile. When they broke the silence it was Irene that spoke first.

‘There was a reason I asked to come,’ she said.

‘Yeah?’

She nodded. ‘I think we need to talk.’

‘What about?’

‘Like, everything. Properly talk.’

‘I agree,’ Seulgi said. ‘Properly talk.’

‘I mean, get everything out in the open. If this is going to work, and I mean properly work, we have to be honest. We have to help each other. And not, like, rely on each other to solve each other’s problems. Or use each other as a crutch. But properly help each other.’

‘I know. I agree.’

‘Good. That’s good. A good start.’

‘Do you want to go first?’

Irene shrugged. She leant back and sighed. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I guess I could. What do you want me to say?’

‘Anything. Everything. It was your suggestion.’

‘Suppose you’re right.’

‘What’s been bothering you? Why did you bother texting me?’

‘Because I couldn’t stop thinking about you.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah,’ Irene said. ‘It’s true.’

‘That’s a start, then.’

‘I mean, it was kind of bothering me. I couldn’t focus on anything and I had no idea why. For like a week straight you were all I could think about. I chalked it up to me being such a dumb idiot when I start liking someone. A hopeless romantic, you know. But I guess it was something else. Still is. It’s that I felt so ing guilty about leaving you like that. About ditching you and pretending it was going to be okay if we were separate. And I know I said this earlier and I’m repeating myself but you said we need to say everything so I’m saying it again. It’s what’s been bothering me. And now that we’re here I feel better already. I feel like a weight’s been lifted and I can get back to what’s actually bothering me.’

‘Which is?’

There was no reply for a while. Irene looked down at her hands, neat in her lap, one over the other. She folded her legs and unfolded them and shifted her weight awkwardly and sighed. ‘How can I talk about it without sounding cliché?’

‘Who cares if you sound cliché?’

‘Me.’

‘Well. I don’t. So, go on.’

‘I don’t know. It’s just, I feel like I’m directionless. Like I’m going round in circles with my life and I don’t know what to do or where to go. I don’t know how to describe it better than that without sounding stupid. Without sounding like I’m whining or something. But it’s something that’s been bothering me for a long time and I don’t know how to get over it and I wish I did. I feel like I end up sounding like one of those hippies or whatever but it’s how I feel. Like I’ve wasted so much of my life doing what other people want me to do, or what I’ve convinced myself I want to do based on other people. Because I’m terrified of disappointing them. Because I feel like it’s too late to turn around and tell people that I’m not what they think I am. That I don’t want to be that and I haven’t for a long time. Like I’m letting them all down or something. And I feel like it’s gotten to the point that I can’t go back now, because I look around me at what everyone else is doing my age and where they all are and they all seem to have their lives in order. They’ve all got kids on the way already, or they’re all getting engaged, or they’ve all got their dream jobs lined up, or they’re already getting their master’s, and then there’s me. I’m stuck doing this stupid internship that I don’t even want to do anymore, and I’m sick of it, and I’ve got a degree that I don’t want and never did, and I’m almost half way to thirty already. If I went back to uni now I wouldn’t graduate until I’m twenty-seven. I just feel like I’ve wasted so much of my life already and I feel like it’s dumb for me to even complain about this because look at me. Listen to me. I’ve still got everything going for me. I live well enough. I’ve got friends. I’ve got a roof over my head. What right do I have to complain about how directionless I think my life is? Why do I deserve to complain about that sort of when other people have it so much worse than me? I end up sounding like a trust-fund kid or something and I don’t want that because I don’t want to be that. I don’t want to sound like I’m taking stuff for granted but I don’t know what to do anymore. I need advice, basically. And I’ve been trying to sort it all out and that’s why I pushed you away and it turns out that I have no ing clue what I’m doing and being away from you didn’t help because I think you’re the smartest person I’ve ever met and you’re the perfect person to turn to.’

Seulgi laughed dryly. ‘I’m not smart at all,’ she said.

‘I think you are,’ said Irene. ‘I think you’re so much more intelligent than you let on. Because you know all this that’s gone on in your life and you know where the responsibility lies and everything like that. That’s not even adding in how well-read you are and like that. You might not have everything sorted out but at least you know it. That’s more than ninety-nine percent of people can say. You have your head screwed on right.’

‘Thanks.’ Seulgi looked at her. Irene was almost crying. ‘You want some advice?’ she said.

‘Yeah,’ Irene said. ‘Please. I really, really do.’

‘I’m pretty at advice.’

‘I don’t care. I just want to talk to you.’

‘Yeah?’

Irene nodded. There was a quiet and tender moment between them when neither spoke. Seulgi watching Irene watching her. Then she said, ‘You know what I think?’

‘What?’

‘I think you need to stop worrying about other people’s perceptions of you. And I know that’s a lot easier said than done, but it’s something I’ve had to deal with while being in the spotlight. People are probably going to judge you silently, or give you dirty looks, or whatever. It’s human nature to judge other people, even if we pretend we don’t do it. Even if we like to pretend we’re above that. But you’ve got to shrug that off because there’s no way for you to handle your problems head-on if you’re constantly thinking about other people. And I don’t just mean how other people think of you – I think the biggest problem is what you think of other people.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Honestly?’

Irene nodded.

‘I think one of our big problems as a society is how we judge other people,’ Seulgi said. ‘And other peoples’ problems. It’s an insidious thing, and it doesn’t ever lead to anything good. The more we compare ourselves to other people, the more we convince ourselves that our own personal problems are trivial, that they’re nothing compared to the struggles of others, to the strife of people less fortunate than ourselves. The more we do that, the more we downplay our own issues, the more we hide them away and pretend they don’t exist, pretend they’re figments of our imagination, act like they don’t deserve to exist because we’re too good to have problems like that. We’re too privileged. And where does that mindset lead us? What does it do except grow those problems until they become unmanageable, before they spread out of control? What does it do to help us at all? It doesn’t.

‘Other people do have it worse. There’s always somebody in the world that has it worse at some moment in time than you did. That’s just statistics. But we all suffer. In our own way, we all suffer at times. Some a lot more than others. And there are no direct comparisons between the suffering of any two individual people nor should there be. We’re better than that. We deserve to be better than that. And the more we convince ourselves otherwise, the worse it becomes for everyone. The more you act like your issues are negligible because of how privileged you are, the more you allow them to become bigger issues. Cognizance is no excuse for blind acceptance. You’re not going to help yourself by acting like you’re not hurting, because you are. You’ve said it yourself.  You’ve no idea where you’re headed in life or what you’re doing or where you even want to be and you don’t know how to fix it. That’s okay. That’s your problem, and it’s no less relevant or serious than somebody else’s and you should never treat it as such. Because with or without me, that won’t help you. It’ll only make things worse. Trust me on this. I’ve been through it. I’m going through it still, and it’s a hard thing to overcome, because it’s parasitic. It’s a virus. I’m not allowed to struggle or suffer because I own a penthouse and a sports car and I have more money than I count and I’m on every magazine cover in the country. You know how long I went through that mindset? Far too long. And look at me now. Look at what I’ve become. I’m a mess, and maybe I’m aware of it but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m still messed up and probably always will be a little bit. I don’t want to see you like that, Irene. I don’t want you to come to that.’

‘What do you suggest I do?’ Irene said.

‘Suggest? I don’t know. But don’t ever downplay what you’re going through. Don’t ever do that. Because it’s the worst possible thing you can do. The more aware we are of our own issues the most we can work to overcome them, to figure them out and get to the bottom of why they exist and find some remedy or cure or even short-term solution to fix them. And you’re right. Some people have it worse than others. Some people may never be able to overcome those struggles. But that doesn’t mean you have to be one of them.’

Irene was quiet for a long time and when Seulgi looked at her properly she saw that she was crying quietly. ‘You’re good at that, you know,’ Irene said with a smile.

‘At what?’

‘Giving advice. I told you, you’re the smartest person I know.’

‘I’m not smart.’

‘You’re just wise, then.’

‘I’m not that, either. I’ve just been through a lot of .’

‘Thank you, Seulgi. Really.’

Seulgi looked at her again. Tears welled in her eyes. They were quiet a long time and they watched each other again. It had become a habit in only a few hours. To gaze upon each other with something that neither needed to speak. Soon they were both smiling again. Enveloped I in a thin red light, twinned against the backdrop of a thousand shadows in a silver twilight, so young and painfully aware of those feelings they had no right to speak. It was Seulgi that spoke first again and as she did she stood and smiled again.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I have something to show you.’

‘What?’

‘Come on.’

She led Irene to the bedroom. She chased out the dark with the beside light and stood by the side of the bed looking back at Irene and Irene at her, in a breath at that sight in front of her. Seulgi so tall and slender and soft, the thin camisole so perfect again her, her skin taut and tanned and awash in bedlight, a glimmer of some rare new joy paired in her eyes. She motioned Irene forward and Irene followed. When Irene was in front of her she turned and bent and opened the bedside drawer and began rifling around inside and turned back around with something small and bright in her hand. It was a small diamond necklace, the penchant in the shape of a fivepoint star. She held it up in the small light of the room and it danced there, oblique shape and shade one and the same, counterself enormous in shadow against the back wall, vision of that star so huge as to be whole.

‘You know who bought this for me?’ Seulgi said.

‘Who?’

‘No one. I bought it myself. I get about a dozen of these sorts of things every week, from potential managers and agents trying to butter me up, or companies, or business associates, or guys trying to woo me because they know it’ll bring them fifteen minutes of fame. Necklaces, broaches, pendants, bracelets, earrings. Every kind of jewellery you can imagine. I’ve got rooms full of heels and boots and designer outfits. So much free . But it all becomes the same after a while. It all feels so fake. But not this. I bought this myself, with the very first paycheck I ever got. I don’t think it’s real diamond but I don’t care. It’s mine. It’s the only item I’ve got that’s special to me. And you know why I bought it?’

‘No,’ Irene said. She looked up at Seulgi, close enough to smell her breath. Seulgi let the necklace fall into her hand.

‘I bought it for someone else but I don’t even know who. I was a lot like you as a teenager, you know. A hopeless romantic. I use to watch all these cheesy dramas and . You know, the ones where the guy and the girl would have a big fight in the second-to-last episode, and the girl would run away, and the guy would finally realise he’d ed up, and he’d chase after her and suddenly it’d be raining like crazy, and finally in the rain he’d confess how much he loved her and they’d both cry and kiss and make up? And everyone at home would cry along with them? Yeah, I watched pretty much every single one of them, and I cried at all of them. I was such a romanticist. So I bought this in the hopes that one day I’d do the same thing. I’d gift it to someone that meant more to me than anyone else in the world. I wouldn’t gift it to my first love, or to a crush, or anything like that. I didn’t even promise myself I’d gift it to someone I was dating. I’d just gift it to whoever meant the most to me. Best friend, closest confidant, lover, whatever. Just whoever was there for me. Because I was pretty lonely as a kid in this business. I had nobody to talk to. No friends or anything. So I made sure when I found the right person I’d let them know. So I’d never let them go.

‘Then I got my first big photoshoot about a year later. It was for this big fashion ad and I thought it wasn’t going to be huge or anything but it blew up. Front page, biggest sales week of the year, all that sort of stuff. It was the first time they had me in those black leather jackets and the black jeans with my hair all messy and , the ones they call iconic now or whatever. That was when they called me Stargirl. They thought it was cool and edgy and hip. Thought it made me sound like some counterculture rebel or something. Like I was ing James Dean. And in all fairness, it sold a -ton of copies, so I guess it worked as a marketing strategy. Plus, that jacket’s become synonymous with me now. But anyway, the necklace. I found it again. I’d honestly totally forgotten about it, and about my dramas and stuff, but I found it again in a drawer, and I got thinking. I realised I kind of like the whole moniker thing, and Stargirl sounded pretty cool, so I decided I was going to call whoever my very closest person was my Stargirl, you know? I know that sounds super cheesy. I get that. Because it is cheesy. But hey, I told you I was a hopelessly romantic teen.

‘And then everything went to . My whole life, basically. That’s when it started getting to me, and when I first started realising that everyone was using me for this vapid because they were all caught up in the lifestyle and they didn’t give a about me so long as I made them a fat check or two. That’s when this spiral of began, and honestly it never really ended. That’s when I realised I was never going to find anyone. That the whole Stargirl was some stupid teenage fantasy, just some dumb seventeen-year-old dream, and that the real world wasn’t like that at all. The real world was cold and harsh and not at all romantic, and I was alone.’

She wiped her eyes but it was no use. ‘That was me. Somebody that people used and chewed up and spit out because what did I matter? As long as I didn’t kill myself, they didn’t care how sad I was, how depressed I was out of the public eye. I still looked good on the magazine covers, right? Nobody was ever going to care for me again. I convinced myself of that for years.

‘And you know what? I was right. I was completely right. Until I met you. And then I don’t know what happened. I still don’t. I think you’re a witch or something because I’m so ing confused but I don’t even care anymore because I can’t imagine being without you and you’ve changed me. You’ve made me feel like a proper person again. You’ve made me feel human, like I belong somewhere. So, yeah. It’s you, Irene. It’s been you all along, and I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to say it. But I’m saying it now, and I mean it. I want you to have this. I want you to wear it for me. Because it’s you. You’re my Stargirl.’

There were no words between them and Irene did not take the necklace nor did Seulgi put it around her neck for there was no time between Seulgi finishing and Irene taking her gently and kissing her and stumbling towards the bed and kissing her again and Seulgi letting the necklace fall to the floor and then her shirt and Irene’s too and kissing again and hands roaming over skin and the flush of their throats and the heat of their cheeks and Irene crying softly and smiling and Seulgi smiling and pushing Irene down on the bed and kissing her again and across her jawline and down and Irene weeping with joy and gasping for breath and kissing again and kissing and kissing and Seulgi leaning back and looking down at her and grinning and crying.

‘I love you,’ Seulgi said.

‘Say it again.’

‘I love you.’

‘Please. Again.’

And Seulgi lay there and kissed her and kissed her again and kissed her a third time and pulled back and smiled and cupped Irene’s face in her cold and raw hands and wept.

‘I love you,’ she said. ‘I love you, Irene. I love you so much.’