A/N: The final chapter. Longer Author's Note at the bottom of this chapter, plus thank yous etc. 

For now, enjoy! <3

XVIII. I FEEL IT COMING

"You've been scared of love, and what it did you."

She lay there and let Seulgi take her and take her again and they made love a third time and she slept with Seulgi softly asleep in her arms, boneless and insignificant, the dim and quiet rise and fall of her chest, her hair fallen around her face, back to Irene, one arm around her waist, inhaling the faint tang of shampoo on her hair, savouring it, and when she slept she dreamt of Seulgi and of Seulgi’s face and her smile and her fingers and her perfect countenance and of all Seulgi had amounted to and all they together had become and she smiled and she did not stop smiling. In the morning when she awoke to find the space in the bed beside her empty she was still smiling.

It smelled vaguely of lemongrass. A thin scent from somewhere beyond the confines of the bedroom. Dark and lightless, the curtains still drawn tight. She could smell bacon. Or some other meat. And coffee. With a smile still she rose and with some care navigated the space between the bed and the door like a drunkard, awash with Seulgi’s scent, marked by Seulgi, sore from Seulgi and sore of Seulgi, her neck and chest and jaw daubed in lipstick, in makeup, her pipeclayed eyes all soot and run dry, a smile still on her lips, her skin goosefleshed ever so slightly in the cold chill of the morning where it still lay in dewfall over the rolled and distended glass of the windows and cast there the warped visage of a city wrapped in synthetic sunlight. And lights from the kitchen. The clang of pans, running of the sink.

She stood there smiling for a moment. How long had it been since she had heard that before? And what memories did it bring back. All these moments. These portions of time, of her and Seulgi alone together, something they shared that they would not share with anyone else. Slowly she opened the door. A thin and warm light from the windows immediately filling the room. Seulgi was there behind the sink, as she so often had been before, plates in hand, the hob on and cooking, the smell of bacon and panfat and grease and butter, two hot rolls of bread on a chinaplate, the coffee already boiled, and she looked up and over at Irene and grinned and it was so good and so pure that Irene could have cried, could have stood there and wept and grinned back and said thank you, thank you for giving me this, for giving me Seulgi, for letting me have this moment again. Thank you thank you thank you.

‘Hey,’ Seulgi said.

‘Morning.’

‘Made you some breakfast. You hungry?’

Irene laughed.

‘What?’

‘Déjà vu,’ Irene said.

‘Oh. Right.’ She nodded to the plates. It was bacon and eggs and the rolls of fresh bread and a small slab of butter and fat sizzling in the bottom of the pan and two pots of steaming coffee. ‘Breakfast,’ Seulgi said. She took the plates over to the table and they sat and they ate in silence, stealing glances at one another over the rims of their cups or between mouthfuls of food, laughing and smiling, studying each other slowly, the soft lines and the contours and the markings of lipstick and teeth marks and their makeup as it had run throughout the night and the smell of perfume again. When they were finished Seulgi cleaned the plates away and sat back down and they had some more coffee and sat watching the sun come up over the folded spine of the morning like a celestial event wholly and entirely suited to some other form of morning, so bright and so true, and they watched for a long time and neither spoke and when that comfortable silence was finally broken it was Irene that spoke first. She was almost crying again.

‘Hey,’ she said. Seulgi turned to her. Saw the tears in her eyes.

‘What?’ Seulgi said. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.’

‘You’re crying.’

‘I’m not, I’m just…never mind.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Irene.’

Irene smiled. She wiped her eyes with the back of one hand. ‘I never quite expected this,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘This. Any of this. I mean, I know it’s happened before, but it feels different now. It feels right. I never felt comfortable before. Never felt like I belonged here. I felt like I was wasting your time, and wasting mine, and that it’d be better if I left. But I don’t feel that now. I don’t know why, it’s strange. I just feel right again.’

‘Because you belong here.’

‘Yeah. I guess I do. Thanks.’

‘For what?’

‘For everything.’

‘What’s everything.’

Irene shrugged. She looked almost coy. ‘I don’t know. Just, for all you’ve done. For letting me get to know you. I know how ing stupid that sounds or whatever. Or maybe even a little creepy, but I don’t care. I honestly can’t imagine not knowing you, and it’s weird because it’s only been a few months, but I genuinely can’t imagine my life without you. I think about you so much and I think about what I want to say to you and like that and I now I can’t imagine the opposite. So thank you, for letting me do that. For letting me get obsessed with you, I guess.’

Seulgi laughed. ‘Thank you for getting obsessed with me. And not in a creepy killer way, either.’

‘You’re welcome, I guess.’

They were quiet for a while. They watched each other. They smiled. They shared glances knowingly and unknowingly and they smiled some more and they laughed and neither knew quite what to say but it was right. It was all okay.

‘Irene,’ Seulgi said.

‘Yeah?’

‘This is okay, right?’

‘Yeah. This is fine.’

‘You said you wanted something.’

‘What?’

‘You said you wanted us to work through our problems together.’

Irene nodded.

‘But not have to use each other as a crutch.’

‘Yeah.’

‘What did you mean? I mean, I kind of get it. I just want you to say it properly. Just so I know. Because I have a feeling that I’m feeling the same way but I’m not as good as you at putting that sort of into words, you know?’

Irene smiled. ‘You are,’ she said. ‘But what I meant was, I want us to help each other. I want to listen to your problems and I want you to listen to mine and I want to be able to offer you advice and you me, and I want us to be able to work through our problems together, but I don’t want us to rely on one another to block out all the negative and find the good just with each other. That happened before and I didn’t even realise it. I was using you because I was so scared of being lonely that I thought forcing myself to love you was the right thing to do. And I guess, in a weird and twisted sort of way, it totally was, but I shouldn’t have done it. And you were using me to get away from all the messed-up happening in your life that you felt was spiralling out of control. To find some semblance of normality again. Or to block it all out and pretend it never happened, that it didn’t exist. That’s what happened before, and I don’t want that again. Because it’s not healthy for a relationship.’

Seulgi grinned. ‘A relationship,’ she said.

‘What? What’s so funny?’

‘Nothing. It’s just the first time I’ve heard those words in so long.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Me too, I guess.’

‘It’s alright, though. It’s good.’

‘Yeah.’ Irene smiled. ‘It’s good.’

‘I was wrong before. And I’m sorry for that. I shouldn’t have ever led you on, or put you down, or acted like I was superior to you that you didn’t even matter. All that hurtful I said about you being just another one-night-stand, all the awful stuff I said to you to hurt you, to push you away. I should’ve never done any of that, and I’m sorry for it and I hope we can put it all behind us. Can we?’

‘Put it behind us?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Yeah,’ Irene said. ‘Yeah, we can. A fresh start.’

‘A fresh start.’

They fell quiet again. Seulgi just thinking. After a while she said, in a soft voice, ‘What about you?’

‘What about me?’

‘Your problems. You said you had some you were going through, too, and you’ve sort of explained it to me but not really. Sorry if I’m sounding really aggressive. I’m sorry.’

‘No, no. It’s okay.’ Irene smiled. A thin and sad smile. A smile of melancholy. ‘It’s alright. It’s better to talk about it, right? That’s what I want. That’s what we need to be.’

‘Yeah. That’s what we need to be.’

‘None of the I’ve been going through is anything compared to what you have, though.’

‘That’s stupid.’

‘What?’

‘That’s stupid,’ Seulgi said again. ‘Downplaying your problems like that. You’ve got to stop doing it.’

‘Sorry.’

‘And stop apologising.’

‘Sorry. I mean…you know what I mean.’

Seulgi laughed. ‘Yeah. I know what you mean.’

‘I didn’t mean to.’

‘Go on. It’s okay.’

Irene was quiet for a while. She folded her hands in her lap and crossed her legs and uncrossed them and shifted in her chair as if to sit still would be to succumb to some extreme form of anxiety or something similar. When she spoke at last it was in a soft voice and she said, ‘I just feel so lonely all the time. I don’t know what to do about it and it’s eating away at me and I think I know what it is. It’s the fact that I have no idea what I want to do, and I’ve said before that this sounds like such a privileged first-world problem but it’s true. I feel so directionless and everyone around me has their fully figured out and I feel like they’re all just leaving me in the dust. I know I’m only in my twenties or whatever but even still. I feel like I’m being left behind.

‘It’s something that shouldn’t get to me but it really does, you know? It really does. I have no proper hobbies anymore, and I don’t like where I work, and I can’t see a career for myself in anything to do with it ever again, and I have only a few friends and they’ve all got their sorted and they know what they want to be doing, or if they don’t they do an amazing job at hiding that fact and pretending they do. And I’m just sat here not knowing what I want to do, and it kills me. It makes me feel like I’m alone. Like I’m just coasting. Like I’m going to go through the rest of my life miserable and lonely and without direction or aim or pigeonholed into doing something because it pays the bills or because it gets me by or whatever other you want to say and then what? Then I’m dead. And yeah, that sounds dramatic, and it’s not a huge deal, but to me it is. To me it’s eating away me, and I don’t know what to do about it.

‘I think that’s why I became so enamoured with you. Apart from the fact you were incredible, of course. But it was something I felt like I had to do. I had to try and connect with someone. I had to find something in common with somebody else, because if I didn’t I was going to go insane. I was going to be alone forever. Even with friends I was alone. I thought maybe if I could find that special someone it’d all be okay. And I guess it was ironic that I found someone even more messed up than me. No offence, of course. I’m sure you’d agree with that.’

Seulgi nodded. ‘Sure,’ she said with a grin.

‘Yeah, see? But like, I didn’t expect to properly fall for you or anything. But I did, almost instantly. And then this whole thing has just been one big spiral of , because I was using my connection to you to mask the fact that I absolutely have not got my sorted and I don’t know if I ever will. And it all seems so simple and easy to fix from the outside and that’s the problem, because it probably is, but here, for me, it feels so hard. Maybe I just have to quit my job and go back to uni or something like that, or find somewhere else, but it’s the fear of getting it wrong, you know? Because I feel like I don’t have anyone helping me in this, even if I do, and I feel like that inadvertently ends with me pushing people away because I convince myself that I’m alone, or I deserve to be alone, because I’m such a mess and everyone else has themselves sorted and they don’t need me being a burden to them. You know what I mean?’

Seulgi nodded. Irene wiped her eyes and shifted herself again. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I know it sounds stupid, and I know you don’t have time for this.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Seulgi said. ‘I’ve always got time for it. For anything you want to say to me. I’m serious, Irene. Don’t think you’ve got to keep this stuff bottled away because you tell yourself it’s not important, or because I have problems as well, or anything like that. The more you bottle it up the worse it gets. I know from personal experience. I’ve been doing that for years and look where it’s gotten me now. So yeah, don’t keep it hidden from me. It’s like you said, right? We’ve got to work together. We’ve got to listen to each other, to help each other out. And yeah it’s going to be hard, and there’s going to be some along the way, and I know that for a fact. Because we’re not perfect and we never will be, because perfect’s a pipedream. Perfect’s not what you aim for and it never should be. There are times where I’ll probably lash out, or I’ll get upset or despondent or I won’t want to talk, because I’m scared of all the that’s happened in the past and it’s hard to get over it, and there’ll be times where the same will happen for you, I’m sure, but we can get past it. We’ve got to support each other, without having to rely on each other. We’ve got to be a team, because that’s what we are, right? We’re a team.’

Irene smiled. She looked up at Seulgi again. Seulgi was looking back at her. By the windowlight she looked almost ethereal. As if to hold out a hand to feel her there would be to feel naught but some cruel illusion or distortion of that selfsame light in the shape and approximation of Seulgi or of what Seulgi had once been. But she was there and she was real and she would be forever more.

‘I love you,’ Irene said.

‘I love you too.’

‘I do. I mean it.’

‘I know,’ Seulgi said. She laughed. ‘I mean it, too.’

‘I want to be with you. I don’t want to lose you again. I don’t think I could.’

‘Me neither.’

‘I want to listen to all the problems you’ve got and all the things wrong with you and I want to help you like you want to help me and I want to be there for you, Seulgi. And I don’t want to push you away again, because I don’t know if I can bear that.’

‘Nor me.’

‘I love you, Kang Seulgi.’

Seulgi smiled. ‘I love you too,’ she said. ‘Now kiss me.’

She sat by the window in the stink of bacongrease and coffee and smiling absently. In truth it felt like years since she had sat there. She watched the cars pass idle and muted in a long slish of wet tiretreads. It was not raining anymore but had been for most of the morning. She checked her phone and then a second time and turned back to the window to see the lights across the street flicker like Christmas decorations in the ripple of the glass. Obscured in rain the tapestries of the shopvendors and their wares, the harps of light from the neon and the chalk, their documentations of daily sales and offers of such and restaurants and cafes and PC Bangs and streetstores and long awnings. All seemed so alive where before it had seemed anything but. What had changed? Without word she knew and she smiled again.

Irene looked up. The waitress was coming over with her coffee. She thanked her and took a long drink and when she set the cup back down Yeri and Wendy and Joy were standing there by the door. She waved them over.

‘Hey,’ Yeri said. She sat across from Irene, by the window, peering out like some purveyor of fortunes into the afternoon murk.

‘Hey.’

‘What’s up?’

‘Not a lot.’

Joy looked her up and down. ‘You’re not talking much,’ she said. ‘That’s not like you.’

‘There’s not a lot to say,’ Irene said.

They sat for a while and talked about little things while they waited for their food. They talked of the weather and how it had come in so grey in the long days of Summer and how none of them liked it much but perhaps it was inevitable for monsoon season was soon approaching. They talked about Wendy’s new job and they all agreed it was a great thing and then they talked about Yeri’s internship and they congratulated her on that and though she shrugged them off they could tell that she was prouder than she had been in a long time if not ever. They talked about the coffee, about the bacon. They talked until they had little else to talk about and then they talked some more and it all felt very right. As if Irene had not seen or even spoken to them in many a month when in truth it had been only a few days, a week at most. They spoke of their love lives. Of where they were at and where they intended to go. Where they were headed. They spoke first of Wendy and then Joy and Yeri and then finally Irene and Irene said little. She sat there with her cheeks red and they and asked her who she was seeing if anyone and she said it was none of their business.

‘C’mon,’ Yeri said. ‘I mean, you might as well just say it. We all know anyways.’

‘What?’

‘We all know.’

‘Know what?’ Irene said.

‘About you and Seulgi.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Come on,’ Joy said. ‘Don’t play dumb. It’s pretty obvious you’re still seeing her, right?’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Well,’ Wendy said, ‘considering you were crying about her to me like, a week ago, I’d say it’s a pretty good guess, no?’

‘I wasn’t crying to you about her.’

‘Yes you were.’

‘Alright, maybe a little. But that’s different and you know it.’

‘No I don’t. And no, it isn’t.’

Irene shrugged. She finished the last of her coffee. ‘Alright,’ she said. ‘Whatever.’

‘You’re seeing her again, aren’t you?’

‘Yes. I’m seeing her again.’

Yeri grinned ear to ear. ‘I knew it,’ she said. ‘I can just sense it from you. You’re like one of those spiders, you know? Wait, not a spider. I think it’s guinea pigs. You know, the ones that emit pheromones when they’re currently in mating season or whatever. Is it snakes? I don’t even know.’

‘I’m not ing emitting pheromones.’

‘No. Of course not. It’s a metaphor. Or an analogy. One or the other. I mean, you’re metaphorically emitting pheromones, you know? I can just see it on your face.’

‘Alright. I’m dating her. Is that what you wanted to hear?’

Joy set her coffee cup down. ‘Like, properly dating?’ she said.

Irene nodded.

‘Are you serious?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Yeah,’ Yeri said, ‘but are you properly properly serious?’

‘Yes I’m properly serious.’

‘That’s pretty cool. Assuming you’re not lying, of course.’

‘Why would I be lying?’

‘Well. I don’t know. But she’s a celebrity.’

‘And not just any celebrity,’ Joy said. ‘Maybe the most popular in the country right now. The hottest, at least.’

‘I’m not lying,’ Irene said.

‘Alright. Cool. I didn’t think you were.’

Yeri smiled. ‘All jokes aside, that’s pretty great,’ she said. ‘Seriously. I’m happy for you. It’s been a long time coming.’

‘What?’

‘I mean, it’s been like this for ages. For months, even. You’ve been so whipped maybe you didn’t even see it but we all guessed it.’

‘I haven’t been whipped.’

‘Kinda have.’

Irene looked at Wendy. She just shrugged. ‘Sort of,’ Wendy said. ‘Sorry.’

‘We made bets and everything,’ Joy said.

‘Bets on what?’

‘On how long until you got together.’

Yeri nodded. ‘Or until she broke your heart,’ she said.

‘That’s pretty cold-hearted of you.’

‘Is it?’

‘I mean, kind of.’

‘Do you mind?’

Irene was quiet a minute. She smiled. ‘Whatever,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter now.’

‘So,’ Joy said, ‘what about you?’

‘What about me?’

‘What are you going to do now? I mean, about your internship and stuff. Have you quit yet?’

‘What makes you think I’m going to quit?’

‘I don’t know. I just figured, since you don’t like it and all.’

Irene laughed. ‘You guys are actually amazing,’ she said.

‘What? Why?’

‘It’s like you know what I should do with my life better than I do.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean yes, I’m going to quit.’

‘Wait,’ Yeri said. ‘Seriously?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You’re quitting the internship?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And doing what?’

‘I’m going to go back to uni. I kind of figured I’d have three or four different options and I weighed them all up properly. That’s why I’ve been doing for the past week straight.’

Wendy finished the last of her bacon and pushed the plate aside and wiped her fingers on one of the small foldaway napkins. ‘What were your options?’ she said.

‘Well, I could start looking for a job elsewhere, but I don’t think anybody’s going to take me on unless it’s to do specifically with business or economics, and I don’t want that. I hate it. I’m so done with even the thought of it. I could also go back to uni and do another bachelor’s in history, but that’s another three years to get to the same position I’m in now. Or, I could apply for a master’s in history, or a history-related field, and hope somewhere takes me on. I’m sure they will, too, since history’s not exactly the most overcrowded subject anymore. And I was speaking to a certain someone and we had this long conversation about what’s best for me and I came to the conclusion that it’s impossible to always get exactly what you’ve want. You’ve got to make a couple small adjustments here and there to your life schedule to maximize your happiness. To maximize what you get out of life. And they’re not sacrifices, they’re just rearrangements. So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to go for a master’s, and maybe it’s not what I wanted to do five years ago but it is now. I want to be happy again. I want to do what I want to do.’

There was a quiet between the four of them punctuated only by the dim hum of machines in the kitchen. Irene studied them each in turn. As if she could no longer rely on them to be serious but they were and she saw that. Yeri smiled softly. ‘I’m so happy for you,’ she said, and there was no hint of sarcasm nor spite in her voice nor had there ever been. ‘Seriously. The fact that you know what you want to do now is amazing.’

‘Yeah,’ Joy said. ‘It seems like you’ve finally figured it out.’

‘Sort of,’ Irene said. ‘I’m just going with the flow.’

‘You’re not going with the flow,’ Wendy said. ‘You’re making the flow.’

‘That’s awful.’

‘What?’

‘That’s genuinely so terribly cheesy.’

‘It’s true, though.’

Irene smiled. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘You know what? It is. I’m making the flow.’

‘Maybe now you’ll finally stop moping about,’ Yeri said.

‘Probably not,’ said Joy.

‘I never mope about.’

‘Right. Of course not.’

‘Not anymore.’

Yeri grinned a wicked grin. ‘Not now that you’ve got Seulgi?’

‘Right. Not now that I’ve got Seulgi.’

‘Still whipped, I see.’

‘I’m not whipped.’

‘Uh-huh.’ They were all quiet for a second. ‘Seriously though,’ Yeri said, ‘I’m happy for you.’

‘For me? What about yourself. As if you’ve got the internship.’

‘I know. I can’t quite believe it. It’s like a dream. You know, I never thought I’d get it at all. I thought there’d be so many people better than me out there. Better suited for it. But I never stopped having confidence in myself, strange as that sounds. I never stopped giving it one-hundred percent. And I guess that’s all I needed in the end. To put in all the effort. Because look at me now. I’m finally doing what I want to do, just like you. And you know what? I’m glad. I think things are finally starting to look up, you know.’

Irene looked from Wendy to Joy and back to Irene. She smiled softly.

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I think they are, too.’

When she walked she walked alone. She walked a route at first familiar and then not at all and the streets so dark as to be by their very nature some other form of darkness absolute, where no streetlamps shone or pools of shadow broken save the starlight so fine and pinpoint and pale. She walked long down the streets under the cover of that darkness, amorphous and shapeless in the withering evening heat, her shadow twinned in some arcane form on the pavements and long up the sidewalks and herself cast one and the same in the windows of the groundfloor apartments and the restaurants as she doubled back onto Hyoryeong and came up at the far end adrift in pilfered light, like a spirit raised from some penumbral place, all cast down in silver and in gold, pushing back the abrogate waste of the dark with her hands and with her sight, and she did not stop walking even when her legs ached for there was no time to do so, she was going to be late, and though she knew that Seulgi would wait there all night she hated making her stand on her own, hated leaving her, hated making her wait at all.

She kept on going. She crossed the street at the end of Noryeong and continued on through the park and all was quiet save the hum of the cars. An old man reading from a dogeared paperback on the bench, peachblossoms in the shade to her left, the soft flush of water in the lake where her distended reflection lay twinned in walleyed shapes bearing some vague and indistinct approximation of her size and proportions, and the moon pressed against the water and the birds skimming across the surface in small crescendos of water carved up like writing. A couple coming up the way and laughing as they passed, a man entranced by something on his phone, a bunch of kids sat on the railing by the far end of the park eyeing her as she went by, hands in her pockets, humming a tune she couldn’t much remember or cared to do so, smile on her face, a smile as always now.

It was still warm and would be for a while. Likely it would be all night. She was wearing a thin white jacket Seulgi had picked out for her at an auction sale and a pair of jeans and there was a cool breeze blowing against her face. She brushed her hair back and passed onto the other side of the road again. The river was in sight now. She could see it maybe ten or fifteen minutes away. Her heart swelling, its frantic pumping back and forth, a staccato tenbeat rhythm to her pulse, and now again as always she was thinking of Seulgi, of what Seulgi might be wearing, of what she might smell like and surely it was amber and honey again, of how her hair might be tied back or tight and high or loose about her shoulders or blown by the gentle wind into her face, so effortless and lazy, so unlike any other that Irene could remember seeing. But she would be in that jacket. She was always in that jacket. Irene smiled. Not far to go.

She watched the cars as they came across the intersection like rude suns born out of some chimeric event, these smouldering machines of steel roaring past in trailbeats of smoke and exhaust fumes. By the light of the streetlamps intermittently she looked like some waif, almost ghoulish in complexion. A gibbous moon hung. It cast her there much the same and her shadow following as if tethered by its very existence to her, selfsame and awkward, thin and lithe and spry on the sidewalk. She walked with her hands never leaving her pockets and a smile never leaving her lips and she brushed her hair back again and checked her phone. There were no new messages. Seulgi was still waiting, though. She would wait all night and then into the morning and she would wait the next day, too. She would wait for Irene for a lifetime

It took almost twenty minutes. She had not expected it so and when she came out cresting the incline looking down the long path towards the waterfront she could see Seulgi there at the bottom, almost a blur from perhaps a hundred or more yards, small and faint on the grass, hands in her own pockets. She was wearing that jacket. The black one she had worn when they had first met. When she looked up and saw Irene she smiled and Irene smiled back. She waved. Seulgi waved. Slowly she descended the grass, navigating in careful steps like a woman blind or fevered. Seulgi smiled wider.

‘Hey,’ she said.

‘Hey,’ said Irene.

‘You’re late.’

‘Sorry. I got a little distracted.’

‘I don’t blame you. It’s kind of peaceful when it’s like this, don’t you think?’

Irene nodded. She stood watching Seulgi a moment. It had become something of a commonality between the two of them. To stand and watch each other. To know then and there that they were both complete again, they were both so good with one another. To know finally that there was somewhere they both belonged. In each other they had found that solace that neither had believed even existed. They had found a purpose again.

‘Come on,’ Seulgi said.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Nowhere. Just for a walk.’

‘Fine by me.’

They walked hand in hand along the waterfront savouring each moment like a collage of scenes imprinted on their active memories and they remembered past times when they had done much the same. They remembered the fireworks and they remembered then the night in the rain, where they had come to terms after so much pain with themselves, with one another, with all they deserved to be together, with all they were or would ever be. And they laughed and walked and they did not stop, hand in hand, the warmth of skin against skin, both smiling, neither talking. It was Seulgi who first broke the silence.

‘How long ago was it?’ she said.

‘Was what?’

‘That night?’

‘In the rain, you mean?’

Seulgi nodded.

‘I don’t know. Five weeks, I think.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. Why? Do you know? Have you been counting?’

‘No. I mean, not really. It just feels like it could’ve been yesterday.’

‘Yeah. I know what you mean. Time flies.’

Seulgi hummed. There was a quiet peace fallen over them and they were content to allow it to remain a while.

‘I got my application back today,’ Irene said at last. They stopped. Seulgi just looked at her. There was a tension there Irene had rarely seen before.

‘What?’ she said.

‘My application. I got the results.’

‘Are you kidding me? Seulgi said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I didn’t want to tell you in text. I figured you’d get mad at me for that and ask me why I didn’t tell you in person.’

Seulgi shrugged. ‘You’re not wrong,’ she said. ‘So? How did it go?’

‘I got accepted.’

‘Holy . Really?’

Irene nodded. Seulgi leant in and kissed her. ‘I knew you would,’ she said. ‘You’re too good not to.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Seriously, that’s amazing. I’m proud of you.’

Irene smiled sheepishly.

‘When do you start? I’m not good with the whole university thing. Never got in myself.’

‘October,’ Irene said. ‘Well, technically the end of September. I’m pretty much all sorted. There’s this thing at the museum, too. It’s not really an internship but it’s kind of similar. Basically you go and help out with curation on weekends and they pay you for it, so it’s basically the exact same thing. I think I’m going to get in there as well. I’ve applied, and I’ve got a good feeling about it. The only thing I have to worry about now is accommodation. I mean, there’s a bunch of stuff run by the uni, and a bunch of private , but it’s all so expensive. Everything in Seoul is nowadays.’

Seulgi was quiet a while. When she didn’t reply Irene took her by the hand again. ‘What’s up?’ she said.

‘Nothing,’ Seulgi said.

‘Tell me.’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘Seulgi.’

‘It’s just…I was kind of going to ask you something.’

‘What?’

‘Something big.’

‘Go on.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

Irene laughed.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘I never thought you were the type to do this,’ Irene said.

‘To do what?’

‘To act all shy and . Like “Oh, it doesn’t matter.” You know that just makes me more curious, right?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. So tell me.’

Seulgi was quiet a second. Then she said, ‘I was kind of going to ask you to move in with me.’

‘What?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I was going to ask you to move in with me.’

‘Like, permanently?’

Seulgi nodded.

‘Like, live with you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘In your apartment?’

‘I mean, where else?’

‘What would the media say?’

‘Who cares?’

Irene didn’t respond. Seulgi studied her for a moment. There was no expression there she could read at all and Irene would not look at her. She took Irene’s hand. ‘What do you say?’ she said. ‘I mean, you don’t have to decide now or anything. You don’t have to decide at all if you don’t want to. It was just a little idea I had. I know I should’ve probably discussed it with you before I dropped it out of the blue like this, but – ‘

‘Yes.’

‘What?’

Irene looked up at Seulgi. There were tears in her eyes and she was smiling again. ‘Yes, I’ll move in with you,’ she said. ‘Of course I will.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You’re not just saying it to make me feel better?’

‘No, you idiot.’

Seulgi grinned. She took Irene by the waist and pulled her close and kissed her gently and Irene kissed her back and they fell into an embrace and they kissed until they were out of breath and pulled back and laughed.

‘Hey,’ Seulgi said.

‘What?’

‘You want to go dancing?’

‘What?’

‘Dancing. You want to go dancing?’

‘Sure. Where?’

‘Anywhere.’

‘After you.’

Seulgi took her by hand and they walked and they spoke and they laughed and by the waterside they were perfect and it was just them and nobody else nor could anybody intrude on their world and when they stopped it was Irene that stopped them and she turned to Seulgi with a glimmer in her eye and said, ‘I’ve got something for you. A gift.’

She dug a hand into the pocket of her jacket and came out with a small velvet box and with one hand deftly opened it and produced a small gold necklace. She held it up in the moonlight and it shone as if plucked from somewhere there amongst the cosmos and arranged by some immortal hand and superbly crafted it was.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Seulgi said. Irene turned it over and held it up again and showed her the pendant. It was a small golden star. She took the necklace that Seulgi had given her from inside her shirt and let it fall free across her chest. They were almost identical.

‘What you said on that day,’ she said. ‘About the necklace. About the star. I kind of fell in love with it. I know I shouldn’t have but I couldn’t help it. It was just such a beautiful idea. So I thought I’d do the same. I’d get you one, to show you how much you mean to me. You’ve changed me in ways I never thought possible. You’ve made me a better person than I ever thought I could be. You’ve helped me get over things I thought would weigh me down forever. You mean more to me than you’ll ever know. And I hope you realise how important you are one day. How treasured you are. How much I love you. And I hope you shine, Seulgi. Because that’s what you are. You’re my Stargirl. And I’m yours. And I always will be.’

Seulgi took the necklace. With one hand she wiped the tears from her eyes. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘Well I’m glad you haven’t said it’s creepy yet. I thought maybe the whole “I’ll always be with you” thing might have come off a little too strong.’

Seulgi giggled. ‘You’re such an idiot,’ she said.

‘Yeah. I guess so. But you’re super smart so I guess it balances out in the end.’

‘Yeah. I guess it does. Thank you. Really. I can’t describe how much this means to me.’ She kissed Irene again and turned and looked about. Warm and empty and silent.

‘Hey,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Is this what you want?’

‘Is what?’

She tried for a moment to think of some form of elaboration and came very quickly to the conclusion that she couldn’t, that there was no elaboration that would alter or clarify her question in any shape of form nor could there ever be. ‘This,’ she said. ‘Is this what you want?’

Irene was quiet. Slowly she smiled. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Yeah, it is. What about you? Is this what you want?’

‘It’s more than I could’ve ever asked for. It’s so much more. More than I dared even hope for. I never thought it’d come to this. I thought I’d die before I got to this.’

‘Remember when you said meeting me was a mistake?’

‘It was.’

‘Yeah?’

Seulgi nodded. ‘The best mistake I ever made.’

‘I love you, Seulgi.’

‘I love you too.’

Irene wiped her eyes. Already they were wet with tears again. ‘Here’s to the rest of our lives together, right?’

Seulgi smiled softly.

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Here’s to the rest of our lives.’

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Wow, okay...so first off, I can't believe it's finally over. This is easily my longest fic now, at just over 100,000 words! I can't believe it ended up so long in the end, but I'm super happy with it, and while I'll always be someone who prefers writing dark stuff over angst/romance/fluff I'll admit that this story has been so fun and so amazing to write and I'm so glad I stuck with it and the theme etc.

Second, I'd like to say the BIGGEST thank you to literally every commenter/reader out there - you're all spectacular. This fic has had by far the highest quality of comments of any of my fics, or really any fic I've come across, and I'm so happy/proud of people posting their theories and what they love about the story, how they connect with it, themes they see shared with other films/books/music etc. Honestly it's been such a pleasure to read them for 18 whole chapters, and I could sit and name each commenter and call you all out but I'll instead just say again - Thank you SO MUCH for the comments, there's nothing better as an author.

For anyone sad this is coming to an end, don't be! I'll definitely be starting another SeulRene fic sometime in the near future, I just don't know what yet. That means I'm totally open to suggestions on genre/plot etc. as I'll literally write anything lol. If I don't get suggestions then it'll probably end up being fantasy or cyberpunk or something, or maybe another angst/romance, idk what I'm feeling yet.

Anyway, thank you all so so so much for reading, I love ya'll, please feel free to check out my other stories on AFF too. Thank you again for the continued support. I'll see you guys soon! <3