A/N: Sorry for late update, next chapter will probs be either Monday night or Tuesday and then normal after that. Comments/Discussions super welcome as always guys <3

Enjoy!

IV. REMINDER

"All I wanna do is make that money and make dope ."

She stumbled home much the same way a blind woman would. Navigating those cold streets slow and clumsy and with a bowlegged gait and her arms wildly about her side. She was crying and she didn’t quite know why. Couldn’t really understand it. What was there to cry about? About Seulgi? What about her? She was just someone. A celebrity. And no connection between them. It was stupid. But she was crying regardless. Her soot makeup running down her cheeks, the piping of her soft chest rosebitten. Some time ago it had started raining and she had no hood with which to shade herself from the downpour. She looked in that state like some homeless pauper or similar, soaked in the rain and crestfallen and crying all the way. Where to go. What to do now.

When she arrived home she just sat there on the couch for a while trying to collect herself. It was almost impossible. Her face stained with tears. She thought of Seulgi again. Of the girl there. Perhaps it had been a misunderstand. Perhaps they hadn’t been ing. Perhaps she was just a friend. A friend with her arm across Seulgi’s chest and down to her s and a tired bedshapen smile on her lips. And what did it matter anyway? They were not a couple nor in any sort of faux relationship. They hardly knew each other. Met twice, that was it. And yet Irene couldn’t stop herself. She sat with her head in her hands, weeping gentle as a child, and she was there for a long time.

Just before midnight she staggered to bed. It was with much difficult she showered and changed. If some outside perspective was to bear witness upon her there they would no doubt see her some strange inebriate, slowfooted and lumbering, face daubed in black, the makeup of a garish clown or otherwise circus performer. She lay there on the bed in a cold dark listening to the rain beat out its stilted staccato rhythm on the windowpanes and watching the black space of the ceiling for some sign or omen or portentous signal but there was nothing. Just her soft crying. She lay there for a time just thinking. What the hell has gotten into me? They were right. They’re always right. I’m just a hopeless romantic. Not even that. I’m an idiot, is what I am. I’m too much of a dreamer. Of an optimist. When she slept it was to the sound of rain hammered against the windows like some tincan concerto, a dull thud rung out interminable, and it was without dreams or thought of such at all.

In the morning she awoke for work and left early. It was hard to form any sort of coherent thought or see herself towards any purpose or goal. Nobody had said anything and she was proud of that. They had not asked her what was wrong, if she was okay, how she was doing. Did she need to chat. She had hidden it well. She finished just after three and stood on the corner outside looking up and around. A heavy thrum of traffic. A cold sun sat perched in the sky like some great brass coin and it was not raining. Irene spent a good amount of time there, debating internally the intricacies of her self-resentment and of her good-natured optimism and how both had turned against her so quickly and of how she had brought this upon herself, of how stupid and naïve she had been to believe in any sort of meaningful connection after such a small window of time, such meagre meetings as they had been, and how it was all her fault. Of course it was. When she finished she turned east and made for Pico’s.

Nobody was there. She ordered toast and black coffee and sat by the window. A soft wind in the afternoon of that day. Street poles in uniform paintwork like menhirs of a lost and lightless time. A bright day still. She took out her phone and texted the others. Yeri said she’d be half an hour. The others when they finished. Then she looked at Seulgi’s number and for a moment contemplated ringing it. If it was even real. She thought it likely wasn’t.

When Yeri arrived it was almost four. She looked windswept. They ordered more coffee and she sat across studying Irene for a moment. A look of concern on her small face. The first thing she said was: ‘Are you okay?’

Irene tried to smile. ‘Yeah,’ she said, in a soft and quiet voice. ‘Yeah. I’m alright.’

‘No you’re not.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Irene. Stop it.’

Irene didn’t say anything. She just looked down at her coffee. The spiral columns of steam. Looking there across that black surface for some form of shadow or shape of reflection in which to see her teary-eyed state but there was nothing. Just a darkness. When she looked back up at Yeri she was almost crying. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said.

‘Tell me. Please.’

‘I don’t know how.’

‘What?’

‘It’s stupid.’

‘Tell me,’ Yeri said. ‘Seriously.’

Irene watched her face for sign of mockery or anything of the sort. All she found was a quiet contemplation, a motherly empathy. It was almost startling. How one so young could be so attuned. She tried smiling again. ‘It’s really stupid.’

‘Just tell me.’

‘I met with Kang Seulgi last night.’

‘What?’

Irene laughed a pathetic laugh. ‘See,’ she said, ‘I told you it was stupid.’

‘No. No it’s not. Seriously, tell me everything.’

She finished the last of the coffee and set the pot down and pushed it across the table. Bitter and tasteless. Watching through the window an absent day for a minute. It had begun to rain. She took a great breath.

‘I just thought it’d be better to meet her in person,’ she said. ‘Since that’s what we did the last time, and the time before. I’m not the sort of person to text endlessly and stuff like that. And besides, it’s probably not even a real number. So I went around to hers instead. Thought I’d surprise her. Yeah, I know how dumb that sounds, don’t worry. Surprising a ing celebrity. Honestly the fact she didn’t have security or dogs or whatever is lucky or else I’d probably be locked up for being a stalker now or something. But yeah.’

Yeri listened intently. ‘So what happened?’ she said.

‘I went around, I knocked on her door.’

‘And?’

‘And when she answered it there was another girl there.’

‘Oh.’

‘.’

‘Yikes.’

Irene nodded. ‘And now I’m like this. And it’s ing stupid and I know it.’

‘Why’s it stupid?’

‘C’mon, Yeri. I’ll let you judge me, don’t worry. I deserve it.’

‘Why?’

‘I’ve literally met this girl twice and the first time I can’t even remember and for some stupid ing reason I got it through my head that maybe there was something between us, like a connection or something. And I have no idea why. Literally no idea. I guess I just figured with the way we were talking that there was something there. She even said it herself. She doesn’t get to talk about her hobbies and stuff often. You know what? You were right. I’m hopeless when it comes to love. I treat everything like it’s a ing TV show or something. Like I meet someone once and then boom, we’re in love. That’s not how it works. And yet I thought it could be.’

She wiped at her eyes with the back of one hand and laughed dryly. ‘God,’ she said, ‘look at me. I’m a mess.’

‘Yeah,’ Yeri said. ‘You are.’

‘I just don’t know why I expected it to be different. Like, this isn’t like me at all. Is it?’

Yeri shrugged. ‘It kind of is. You’ve always been bad at this sort of thing.’

‘But I’m acting like a kid and I can’t help it. I don’t know why. It’s like there’s this magnetic pull and it’s drawing me towards her and I can’t escape it. And I don’t know if I want to. I barely even know anything about her. And she doesn’t know anything about me, either. And yet all I want to do is meet her and sit down for a talk again and I can’t get her out of my head and now I’m a ing state and a half.’

‘Jesus. You need to slow down.’

‘I’ve been crying for like three hours.’

‘I can tell. You want another coffee?’

‘Yeah. Please.’

When Yeri was at the counter Irene sat taking in the lights. As if by some strange series of properties they would rightly diffuse her heartache. Soft yellow, a warm and homely shade in the ceiling blocks. She traced round their origins, the dim glassbulb casings pulsing great and powerful. Perhaps she could find something there to focus on. Some small and intriguing puzzle to take her mind away from Kang Seulgi. But it was not to be. In doing so she conjured up for herself images of Seulgi’s apartment, of her lights, the long neon pinks and the reds against the far window, splayed out like some nightclub arrangement of lights or perhaps epicurean establishment and in truth was it not that? And if not then what else? What of the girl and the others aside? She thought on that for a while. Red lights suited her. Haloed in red she looked herself. She looked dangerous.

Yeri came back with two coffees and set one down in front of Irene. They drank them quietly. Irene watching through the windows a sunglare reflection of a city pressed in black and grey, a wet Winter rain for a warmer season. Yeri watching her. Trying to keep herself together and failing so spectacularly it was almost comical if not piteous first. She finished her own coffee and pushed the cup away and smiled a reassuring smile. ‘Are you okay?’ she said. Irene shrugged.

‘I will be,’ she said.

‘You were right, though.’

‘About what?’

‘About being an idiot. And a bit of a baby.’

‘I’m always a bit of a baby.’

‘That much I can agree with.’ Yeri was quiet a second. Then she said: ‘Hey, can I ask you something?’

‘Sure.’

‘Alright. Well. I’ve been thinking recently, and…’

‘And?’

‘This is going to sound stupid, but…’

‘Say it.’

‘I’ve just been wondering: How are there so many pebbles in the world? Do you know what I mean?’

Irene just looked at her. ‘What?’ she said.

‘I mean, I know it sounds stupid and all, but I got thinking yesterday. And I know that’s dangerous for me but I couldn’t help it. And so I was thinking and I came to this realisation that there are just so many pebbles on earth, you know what I mean? Like, look at the side of every road, and in all those construction sites, and literally on every single railway. They’re everywhere. Like, seriously. Billions of them. Just sat there. Imagine how many of them there are. It’s a stupid-big amount. For real. And it got me thinking: Do they really have that many cliffs around the world? And mines. Actually, do they have pebble mines? Rock mines, whatever. I thought they just had mines for coal and stuff. Natural resources. Although I suppose rocks are a natural resource too.’

Irene watched for her a moment. Yeri didn’t elaborate. She just sat there and shrugged. ‘What the are you talking about?’ Irene said.

‘What? I’m serious. Like, I don’t know what other explanation there would be for actually getting so many rocks, but I was thinking about that too. Maybe they mine them from deep in the earth? I don’t know.’

‘Mine rocks,’ Irene said. Yeri nodded.

‘From deep in the earth.’

‘Yeah,’ Yeri said.

Irene laughed. ‘You’re actually the strangest person I’ve ever met.’

‘Made you smile, though.’

Irene wiped at her eyes again. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘You did.’

‘I’ve got another question too.’

‘Oh God.’

‘No, hear me out.’

‘Go on then.’

‘Alright. You ready?’

Irene nodded.

‘Who would win in a fight – all the humans in the world, or all the ants?’

‘What?’

‘Like, if all the humans got together and decided to work alongside each other, what would happen? Let’s assume in this scenario that all the ants in the world also want to work together, and they’re cognitive enough to understand how they must win. Which is by killing all of us.’

Irene sat there dumbstruck.

‘What?’ Yeri said. ‘You thinking hard?’

‘I genuinely don’t know what to say to that.’

‘Maybe: Thankyou Yeri for being so forward-thinking and clever?’

‘Not what I was going for.’

‘Well, anyway. Who do you think?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘C’mon. Don’t be a spoilsport. Get involved.’

Irene sighed. She finished the last of her coffee and giggled. ‘I guess the humans then,’ she said. ‘We’ve got guns.’

‘No guns or bombs allowed. Just humans with their fists. Or boots, I guess.’

‘Still us.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Why not?’

‘You know how many ants there are in the world? Ten thousand trillion.’

‘I don’t think that’s true.’

‘It is. I Googled it.’

‘Right.’

Yeri looked proud of herself. ‘I’m just saying. Like, really. I think we’d have a hell of a difficult time. You know how many ants each person would have to kill for us to win? More than a million. Each. And that’s including all the fat people and the kids, and the elderly, and everyone else who can’t fight. That’s pretty difficult. I think I’d run out of breath after like, fifty stomps or something. And that’s not even factoring in the bullet ants and those big red ones that paralyse you if you get stung. And those ones with the needles in their faces that send you into unbearable pain. I’ve read it’s actually the worst type of pain you can experience from an animal, but no one hears about it.’

Irene didn’t say anything. Yeri sighed. ‘This is the part where you’re supposed to ask me why no one hears about it,’ she said.

‘Why does no one hear about it?’

‘Because if they sting you, you die. So nobody stays alive to hear about it.’

‘How do you know about it then?’

‘Rumours, I guess. I don’t know. Maybe they’ve done some research into it or something like that. Like, they’ve tested its effects on other animals. On rats and . Look, you’re putting way too much thought into it.’

Irene laughed. ‘Really now.’

‘Alright, maybe I got a little carried away too. But it worked, right? Took your mind off it for a minute?’

‘Yeah. Thanks.’

‘See?’ Yeri smirked. ‘Not just a pretty face.’

‘Thanks, Yeri. Seriously.’

‘Hey, don’t mention it. So what’re you doing tonight?’

‘I don’t know,’ Irene said. She looked back out the window. The rain still in a gale. Watching the crooked pattern of a city block drawn like an oil painting of that very same thing, reticulate and amorphous, a thing seen through a narrow lens. Mute and cold. She turned back to Yeri. ‘I guess just have a quiet night in.’

‘Yeah. Sounds fair. You want to come round or something?’

Irene shook her head. ‘I think I need some time alone.’

‘Alright.’

‘Hey, can I ask a favour?’

‘Sure.’

‘Do you mind not telling the others for a couple days? Just while I sort things out.’

‘Yeah. Sure.’

‘Thanks, Yeri.’

‘Don’t sweat it. Oh, hey.’

‘What?’

She grinned. ‘I have another question for you.’

‘What?’

‘Who do you think would win a fight – Optimus Prime, or a billion bears?’

‘What are you even talking about?’

‘Because I think it would be Optimus, but those two said the bears. I mean, I know that’s because they’re idiots and everything, but seriously. How would the bears win? Optimus could just stay at a distance and shoot them all, right? Unless he runs out of ammo, but he’s never done that in the movies.’

Irene just laughed. She nodded towards the door. Wendy and Joy were coming in from the rain and they looked over and smiled. Yeri turned back towards them.

‘Hey,’ Wendy said.

‘Hey,’ said Yeri. ‘You’re early.’

‘Not really.’ She pointed to the clock behind the counter. ‘It’s half five.’

‘Jesus, have we really been talking that long?’

‘Guess so,’ Irene said. Joy came and sat next to her. She took off her bag and set it down and said: ‘So what’s happening?’

‘Nothing much. Yeri was just asking me a very important question.’

‘What was it?’

‘Who would win between Optimus Prime and a billion bears?’

‘Billion bears,’ Joy said. ‘Easy.’

‘Agreed,’ Wendy said.

Yeri scoffed. ‘Ridiculous.’

‘It’s pretty easy, really. You know many bears a billion is?’

‘A million seconds is eleven days,’ Joy said. ‘A billion is thirty-one years.’

‘What does that have to do with bears?’ said Yeri.

‘A billion bears is thirty-one years-worth of bears.’

‘What?’

‘She means it’s a lot of bears,’ said Wendy.

‘Can we stop saying the word bears, please?’ said Irene.

‘Not yet. Yeri needs to learn that she’s wrong.’

They continued their argument for a while. Yeri detailing the intricacies of Optimus Prime’s weapons capacity and his durability and the other two conveying in no uncertain terms the size and scope of a billion bears and Irene laughing, until they were interrupted by a dim buzzing on the table. Yeri nodded to Irene. ‘It’s your phone,’ she said.

‘Yeah.’

‘You going to check?’

She did.

‘Who is it?’ Joy said. ‘Anyone exciting?’

Irene looked at them. ‘Kang Seulgi,’ she said.

‘Really?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What does it say?’ Yeri said.

‘Can we meet tonight.’

‘Seriously?’

Irene nodded. She read it a second time and a third.

‘Meet where?’ said Wendy.

‘At her place.’

Joy laughed. ‘C’mon. Really?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Go, I guess.’

Yeri gave her a sharp look. ‘Are you sure?’ she said.

Irene shrugged. ‘I feel like I have to. I don’t know why. I just do. For good or for bad.’

‘That’s probably not a good idea.’

Irene looked at her again. A soft and unspoken doubt in her eyes. A wavering in her heart. ‘We’ll see,’ she said.

She stood there in dark and in shadow the adumbrate shineless spectre come to seek answer and perhaps in some hopeful way reprieve from her misery though in truth the latter was not as much expected as wished for and wished hard indeed. The rain had rose and coiled in some terrible storm which beseeched by cold came like some rude and callous thunderclap broke in the very bowels of the earth and the lightning quaked empty in the west, a silent unbecoming sourcelessness over all the world. Irene looked up. Portrait of a windswept building illuminated like a candle, pockmarked interludes of warm light from the windows, rainshimmer painted on the glass. If she was attentive she could squint to make out the shapes of people in some of the windows, vague and leptosomic.  But no light on the second floor. The curtains drawn to.

After a while she went in and through the lobby and into the elevator. It seemed to take a lifetime. There was a strange limbo in which she existed not as part of that place but an accessory, an alien somewhere she didn’t belong at all, and she stood there listening to the mechanical whir of the lift in motion and thinking: Why did I do this? Why the am I here? Why did she text me? She gave me her real number this time. She did. Why?

The corridor on the second floor was dim. A darkness implacable. Dim light overhead in its glass casing, obscured to a red luminescence. No light in the transom. She stood in front of the door trying to form some coherent greeting. The distended bubbleglass playing back her sameself like a shape seen through ripples on water and she could make out very little through it save a soft red glow. She listened. Nothing. Silence. Then she knocked.

It was a long time before Seulgi answered. She was wearing that same black leather jacket and a casual white shirt much too big for her and her hair was tied back in a messy bun. She stood there and nodded and smiled but there was no warmth or emotion at all in that smile. Nothing Irene could place or even estimate. ‘Hey,’ she said.

‘Hey,’ Irene said. ‘Sorry if I’m late. I know you said eight.’

‘Don’t sweat it.’

‘You’re probably like, super busy or something.’

Seulgi waved her off. ‘It’s alright. Come in.’

She did. Waning glow of the red lights cast over her there in streaks. She stood in the kitchen daubed in crimson looking like some wholly unusual baptismal candidate.

‘Want some coffee?’ Seulgi said. She nodded and sat down at the table. While the kettle boiled neither spoke. Irene watched her carefully. To see a sign of any description there. For what she might possibly be wanting to say. But there was nothing. Just Seulgi. She boiled the coffee and poured out two cups and came over and sat down across from Irene. She smiled softly and drank her steaming coffee. Irene did the same. That scent there again. Honey and amber. Always that scent.

‘This is really good coffee,’ Irene said.

‘You said that last time.’

‘It is, that’s why.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Do you make it yourself?’

Seulgi shook her head and laughed. ‘It’s just some generic store-bought stuff. ‘

‘Right.’

An awkward quiet between them again. Thoughts indecipherable. A sort of strange melancholy there. ‘You must have a lot of work,’ Irene said. ‘Like, in general. With modelling and stuff.’

‘It’s the same as always,’ said Seulgi. ‘It varies, I mean. Sometimes I get a bunch of CFs to shoot in a month, sometimes only one or two. Sometimes I get loads of pictorials and stuff, sometimes none. You’ve just got to be lucky, I suppose. And have the right connections. Which I do.’

‘Have you been busy recently?’

‘No. Not really. Here and there, you know? What about you?’

‘Me?’

‘Your work.’

Irene nodded. ‘It’s alright,’ she said. ‘Same every day. Nine till three. I can’t complain. Plus it’ll be good for whatever I want to do later. Whatever that happens to be. I’m not sure yet.’

‘How long have you been working there?’

‘Like, six months. Can’t really remember. It all sort of blends together. Like it’s all one big day. But I finish in August, since it’s only an internship. Then I’m unemployed again.’

‘Not a good place to be.’

‘Agreed,’ Irene said.

‘You said you don’t know what to do after?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I just don’t feel like accounting is right for me right now. Maybe in a year or two. I just feel a bit lost right now.’

For a moment however small there was a look of genuine sorrow on Seulgi’s face. ‘Me too,’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Just…being lost, you know? I don’t know how to describe it properly. I’ve been through a lot of the past few years and, yeah. Lost.’

They were both quiet. Irene not quite knowing what to say to that. She studied Seulgi closer. Her soft pale cheeks, the striking rouge of her lips, that scent. How she looked down at her coffee and back so awkwardly, so alike Irene despite being so very different, tracing a finger around the rim and catching the steam and pushing back down and sighing. Just like she did. ‘Hey,’ Irene said. ‘You okay?’

Seulgi looked back at her. She smiled softly. ‘I got distracted,’ she said. ‘Sorry. Happens quite a lot.’

‘Same as last time?’

‘Yeah. Same as last time.’

‘I don’t mind. Sometimes it’s fun to just get distracted. That kind of came out wrong. But what I mean was, sometimes it’s just fun to just drift away. To think about something else. Know what I mean?’

Seulgi smiled again. ‘Yeah. I think I do.’ She was quite a while. Looking around. Then she said: ‘You want a drink?’

‘Coffee?’

‘Something stronger.’

‘Sure,’ Irene said. Seulgi fetched up a bottle of whiskey from one of the racks in the kitchen and came back and poured out two small tumblers and passed one to Irene. They both drank. Hot and strong, a thick bubbling on the surface and the stink in the glass. Irene winced. ‘That’s strong,’ she said.

‘Yeah.’

‘You normally drink whiskey?’

‘Quite a lot, yeah,’ Seulgi said.

‘How come?’

‘Don’t know. I’ve always drank it, I guess. And it gets you wasted fast.’

‘Is that what you want to do? Get me wasted fast.’

Seulgi laughed. ‘Sounds like you’re wasted already.’

‘I will be soon. Sorry, by the way. In advance.’ Irene looked around. ‘Man,’ she said. ‘If you would have told me a week or two ago that I’d be drinking whiskey with a celebrity I would have told you to wake up. But here I am.’

‘You didn’t even know who I was a week ago.’

‘Well, yeah. But I do now.’

‘I was kind of glad about that, you know.’

‘What?’

‘That you didn’t know who I was.’

‘Really?’

Seulgi nodded.

‘Why?’

She didn’t say anything. Just sighed. Looking down at her glass. Then she filled them both again and tipped hers back until it was empty and filled it a third time and said: ‘Let me ask you a few questions, Irene.’

‘Sure. Why?’

‘Why not?’

Irene didn’t respond. ‘So,’ Seulgi said. She took another sip of her whiskey. ‘What’s your favourite colour?’

‘What?’

‘Your favourite colour.’

Irene laughed. ‘That was a bit of a strange question, sorry.’

‘Why?’

‘I just didn’t expect it.’

‘Well what did you expect.’

‘I don’t know. Not that.’

‘What is it?’

‘Yellow.’

‘Yellow,’ Seulgi said with a smile.

Irene finished her whiskey. Seulgi motioned for the bottle and she nodded. ‘What about you?’ she said. ‘What’s yours?’

‘Red.’

Irene pointed to the lights. ‘I can tell. Mood lighting?’

‘Something like that, yeah. What’s your star sign?’

‘Really now.’

‘Well?’

Irene sighed. ‘Aries.’

‘Cute.’

‘These are some pretty boring questions.’

‘I just wanted to get to know you a bit.’

‘Why?’

There was a long pause before any answer came. Seulgi looking at her and yet not looking anywhere at all. As if the flame inside her had been snubbed out. ‘I don’t know,’ she said in a soft voice. ‘Does it matter?’

‘I guess not,’ Irene said.

‘Good.’ She paused. ‘What’s your favourite food?’ she said.

‘My favourite food?’

‘Yeah. What is it?’

‘I don’t know. Pizza, I guess.’

‘What a boring answer.’

‘Alright, alright. I guess then, my mom’s homemade stew? Turkey , potatoes, carrots and peas, the thickest gravy, all done together in a slow cooker. Beautiful. I can never get the seasoning right when I make it.’

Seulgi smiled. ‘That’s more like it,’ she said.

‘What about you?’

‘Oh, that’s easy. Ben & Jerry’s. Any flavour, but mainly Cookie Dough. You have no idea how much I have to watch my diet as a model but then as soon as I’m allowed to eat whatever I want, boom. It’s straight on the ice cream. Best treat in the whole world. I could literally gorge myself on about three tubs at once. It’s pretty bad.’

‘Me too, to be fair.’

Seulgi grinned. She finished her whiskey and Irene did the same. Fifteen minutes later they were already beginning to feel it. ‘You know,’ Seulgi said, ‘I was thinking the other day about something. And it really got to me.’

‘What was it?’

‘Just about celebrities. About how we treat them as a society.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, this is probably going to sound biased or whatever but I’ll come out and say it anyway. I feel like we put celebrities on this pedestal, and I don’t mean we worship them or anything like that, although we do. I mean we see them as something not quite human, not entirely. Like, we see these actors and singers and models and entertainers as something very different from us, you know what I mean? And we hold them to different standards. And I totally get that. I actually agree with it in some instances. But I feel like as a society we’re quick to act like things celebrities do and ways celebrities act are somehow different or worth more or less than other people. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s kind of like expecting a celebrity to be right and proper a hundred percent of the time. Why? Nobody else in the world is correct and good or whatever literally all the time, so why celebs? Why hold them to that metric? Or on the flipside, expecting a celebrity to behave a certain way or do a certain thing because other celebrities do, or because that’s their image as a society of what a celebrity does, or should be doing. I just don’t agree with it at all.’

‘It sounds like something you feel strongly about,’ Irene said.

‘Yeah,’ said Seulgi. She smiled. ‘It is. Thanks for listening to me for the past half an hour. I feel like I tend to ramble too much sometimes.’

‘It’s fine. Honestly.’

‘Thanks. You want another drink?’

‘Sure.’

She poured their glasses and sat back, just watching Irene. ‘Thank you,’ she said again.

‘For what?’

‘For being different?’

Irene looked confused. ‘Different?’

‘You’re just great to talk to.’

‘I’m not.’

‘You are. Honestly.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know how to describe it. You just are. You’re just different and it’s so wonderful. It makes me kind of feel…’

Seulgi didn’t say anything. She seemed to be contemplating her own words, her own actions. As if by some striking act she had come to realise all she had admitted and all she had spoken on and spoken about. She just stared out at the room for a minute, the glass tight in her grip, running a finger over the grooves. When she looked back at Irene there was a very different expression on her face and Irene did not like it at all. A hardened severity to her gaze. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘about yesterday.’

‘It’s nothing,’ Irene said.

‘No, seriously.’

‘Seriously, it’s nothing.’

‘I don’t want you misunderstanding or anything like that.’

‘I’m not,’ Irene lied. ‘I’m not.’

‘That girl you saw. She’s not my girlfriend or anything like that.’

‘Okay.’

‘I don’t do girlfriends.’

Irene didn’t respond. She played with her own glass. A soft flush had formed on her cheeks and she was biting her lip.

‘I just don’t,’ Seulgi said. ‘I know that sounds weird or stuck-up or whatever but I don’t. That’s what I was talking about the other day. I sleep with girls and they come and go. That’s what I do. I don’t fall in love with anyone or anything like that, even when they fall in love with me. And that’s happened a lot. I sleep with a girl and then the next night I sleep with another and I never see them again.’

Irene laughed nervously. She tried with great difficulty to play it off but in truth she was not calm at all. ‘Why are you telling me this?’ she said.

‘Because that’s who I am. It’s what I’m known for. I drink too much and I party too often and I sleep with too many different people because I can. Because that’s what being a celebrity means I can do.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Understand what?’

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘I just wanted you to know.’

‘Why?’

‘I just did.’

Irene was quiet a second. The whiskey had gone straight through her and the room span on some uneven axis, a staggering tilt to her perspective. She was fighting back tears already. ‘Is that what I was?’ she said. ‘Just a one-and-done thing? The first person you found that night to .’

Seulgi wouldn’t look at her. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘That’s what you were.’

‘But you don’t invite people back once you’ve ed them and left them.’

‘No. I don’t.’

‘You invited me back. Twice.’

Seulgi sighed. ‘I’m just the sort of person who does that,’ she said. ‘It’s all I want to do. Spend my money and sleep with attractive women. Nothing else.’

‘That’s not what I was talking about. You invited me back.’

‘I just do what I want. That’s who I am.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘I just thought you’d want to know.’

‘Why?’ Irene stood up. ‘Why? Is this because you know I’ve got feelings for you?’

‘You wouldn’t be the first.’

‘ off.’

Seulgi laughed dryly.

‘It’s not funny,’ Irene said. ‘I don’t understand. Why would you do that? You decide to call me over so you can tell me that to my face? Why not just ignore me? Why not just give me a fake number again? That’d be better, wouldn’t it? That’s what you do all the other times, right? That’s it.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Then why didn’t you?’

Seulgi tried to smile. She was not crying but Irene thought she might and for what reason she couldn’t tell. ‘I thought maybe I should do it face to face, since I met you again the other day at Mission. I thought maybe it was fate to tell you in person. I’ve never met someone I’ve slept with the night after in the same place. That must be fate.’

‘Stop it.’

‘What?’

‘You knew I had feelings for you, didn’t you?’

‘Like I said, you wouldn’t be the only one. But we’ve only met three times.’

‘So? Does that mean I can’t like you?’

‘It’s a little childish, isn’t it?’

‘God, you’re so full of .’

Seulgi looked back at her glass. A sort of melancholy in her voice. ‘You know nothing about me,’ she said.

‘I know you’re bullting me.’

‘What?’

‘Why would you give me your number if you’re going to tell me this?’

‘Am I not allowed to give out my number now? What if I just wanted to be friends?’

‘Do you?’

‘Do I what?’

‘Do you just want to be friends?’

Seulgi was quiet a minute. She sighed. ‘Look…’

‘No. You know what? No.’

‘Irene.’

‘ you.’

‘Irene, wait.’

She called out again but Irene had already left.

She listened a moment to the heavy sound of footfalls come back like hollering in the corridor and the dim hum of the elevator and softly Irene’s sobbing and the sound of the door opening and the automated voice as it closed and descended into the lobby and then all was silent. All was silent and she was alone.