January 2017.

They were sitting in Seulgi’s room when they first talked about it. They met in Seulgi’s room every day, at the same time. As if to do otherwise would be to break some sacred code, some bond only those five shared. It had become a meeting place for them, a point of convenience. They were sat around the floor and Seulgi and Wendy on the bed.

‘Have you thought about it yet?’ Wendy said.

‘No,’ said Joy. ‘Should we be doing?’

‘Yeah. A couple people on my course have already sorted it out and stuff. Already signed for a house for next year.’

‘What are we going to do? I mean, we’re all going to live together, right?’

They were quiet a minute. Yeri laughed.

‘What?’ Joy said.

‘I never thought about it,’ said Yeri. ‘I guess I just assumed it was already a done deal or something. Know what I mean? Like, I can’t imagine living with anyone else next year. Can you guys?’

They agreed that they couldn’t. ‘We should start looking then,’ Irene said.

‘Yeah. Think we’ll still get somewhere nice?’

‘Probably. I know a bunch of people who still haven’t even thought about it. But it’s better to do it as soon as possible.’

‘Our own house,’ Wendy said. She laughed. Tipped back the last of her coffee. ‘I’ve never lived in a house away from home before. Not on my own, anyway. What about you two oldies? You’re practically ancient compared to us. You must’ve lived on your own, right?’

‘Very funny,’ Irene said.

‘I’m serious.’

‘I’ve lived with my parents all my life. Never moved out. Too expensive.’

‘Seulgi?’

And Seulgi looked at her and with a sort of unspoken sadness in her eyes she just smiled a solemn smile and shook her head and said nothing and that was that.

*  *  *

She felt like a rat in a maze whenever Irene was around. It was as if they were walking on eggshells around one another. Or maybe just her. They talked and they talked at length but never about anything serious. Never about themselves. Or what they were. She remembered the kiss every day. It felt as if she would never forget it, etched into the ancient halls of her mind, a burning memory to be locked away under strict instruction. The soft and tender touch of Irene’s lips against her own, and her neck, the way her muscles stretched taut against her pale skin, like a porcelain doll, the crimson flush of her cheeks in the cold, the sweet and sickly smell of vodka and Cola on her breath and lemon at her neck and lemon against and lemon in her perfume, the matted tangle of her hair as she brushed it out of her face, the feel of her hands against Seulgi, the feel of all of her. How Seulgi longed for that touch again. She found herself imagining scenarios in which she would have told Irene precisely how she felt right there, as if there were no other alternative in the world. Perhaps it would have been for the better. But she didn’t know and never would.

Since then they had not talked about and neither would bring it up. They both knew it. Both felt it. But they skirted around it all the same. As Seulgi lay there on her bed counting the dark shapes of the paint in the ceiling plaster, reticulate and detailed, so strange and alien to her, she thought of Irene again. It was stupid, foolish. It was a child’s love, and she was not a child nor had been for a long time. For longer than Irene knew. Or could ever know. It was the love of two teenagers desperate to find something, to attach themselves to some fleeting semblance of romance, to find themselves in finding someone else. It was that and little more, she thought. But that was life, was it not? To cherish such meagre moments, such small memories. Such insignificant parts of a greater whole, portions of a sum of the soul. That was truly living. And what was life if not living? It wasn’t any life at all. It never could be.

*  *  *
 

By the time she had finished her exams January was almost over. As if it had never been January at all. She found herself talking to Irene less and less in the weeks leading up to her timetable. She spoke to Wendy often, spoke to Yeri and Joy. But with Irene she grew almost distant. When Yeri and Joy suggested they go for a few drinks the day after they had all finished she almost jumped at the opportunity. What about Irene, she said. She’s coming, right? Yeah, they said. She said she would. And Seulgi almost smiled at that. Almost broke into a grin.

In the evening when they had finished their drinks they piled into a taxi and made their way out. Seulgi watched Irene all the way. She sat close by her arm, as if to be removed from that position would be to lose Irene forever. She looked so very beautiful, so unique, so very her. So Irene. Her hair was done up in a messy ponytail and she wore her makeup pale and light on her face and her eyes piping black and stark, like the visage of a Russian doll or similar, and she wore a black dress and a pair of wedge heels and she spoke very little but she drank. She drank a lot.

They danced long into the night. They danced to a different beat each time and they marked out their own curious rhythm and they lost Yeri somewhere in the shuffle of people and then they lost Wendy and soon Joy had disappeared too but that was alright. Irene was close by. Irene was right there. They danced arm in arm and they laughed and they talked again. By the neon they looked like a pair of matching figurines adorned in some lightshow of green, of pastels, and they danced by the shadows and they danced under the low lights and in the stink of sweat and cologne and they drank and danced some more and by the early morning they were both still laughing, hand in hand, Irene leading Seulgi out into the cold air of that unforgiving night, where the city of Seoul slept quietly breathing in the mist, disfigured and illuminate as a charcoal drawing in the distant quivering cold. Irene led her through the streets, blind with drink, both stumbling along like pitiful sots, wobbling from alley to alley, washed up in the lees of the restaurants and by the awnings, giggling like children, Seulgi never losing sight of that hand, never letting it go. Never letting Irene from her sight. All felt right again. All felt whole within her.

They walked through the park hand in hand and they were silent. The ducks slept beside them in the pond. A drunk came staggering along the path and with great effort saluted them improperly and they saluted him back and when he was gone they shared a laugh. They made their way down to the waterfront and there they sat side by side watching the smoking glare of the moon pressed against the face of the Han River like the disproportionate figure of a clock slowly ticking. And the stars beside it. The shadow of Yanghwa Bridge fell like a slender stylus and by its reckoning they could see all the world in that image. Seulgi sat studying the cold dark of the earth falling away. She had been alive to watch it being built and she had lived through times harder than this. She had been there to see the first cars on Yanghwa back some fifty years ago. She had sat there with her mother and they watched them side by side. She remembered asking why it had taken so long to build and her mother had laughed and said she didn’t know. She remembered the opening of the new bridge in 1982 and for that her mother had not been there with her. Nobody had.

Irene sighed. ‘I’m tired,’ she said.

‘Me too. Want to go home?’

‘Not yet. Just wait a bit.’

They sat in silence and they watched the night. They thought of something to say but neither said anything. It was Irene that spoke first. She seemed almost sober in a way, a curious mustering of some sensible energy from deep within. She said, ‘Remember that night in November?’

‘Which night?’ Seulgi said, but she knew.

‘Where we sat here. Where I kissed you.’

‘Yeah.’

‘I thought I was being such an idiot. No idea what came over me. And I guess it must’ve been eating away at me because I haven’t spoke about it since and neither have you, so maybe it was the same for you, right?’

‘Yeah. It was.’

‘I just didn’t know what to say. I figured it’d be more awkward the more I brought it up, you know? Like, if I just ignored it, and you just ignored it, it’d go away. It wouldn’t become an issue. But that’s not true. That hasn’t happened. It’s an issue for me, and I need to fix it, and I don’t know how.’

‘What do you mean?’

Irene didn’t reply. Nor did she turn to Seulgi. She was almost crying. Slowly she took a long and languid breath. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I think I’ve got feelings for you or something.’

‘What?’

‘Yeah. Alright? I’m just going to come out and say it because I’ve always been blunt and this is something I can’t put off any longer. I’ve always been the sort of person to just get out in the open, you know? So that’s what I’m doing. Finally.’

Seulgi didn’t say anything. She looked at Irene and Irene looked at her, almost desperate for her to formulate any response at all, and neither spoke for a long time.

‘Say something,’ Irene said. ‘Please. Just say anything.’

‘Are you drunk?’

Irene laughed. ‘Anything but that.’

‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘Anything else.’

‘Do you regret it?’

‘Regret what? Kissing you?’

Seulgi nodded.

‘No,’ Irene said. She shifted so that she was facing Seulgi properly. ‘No, I don’t. I shouldn’t have done it and it was heat of the moment but I don’t regret it.’

‘Good.’

‘Good?’

But before Irene had time to say anything Seulgi pulled her in for another kiss. They kissed and time slipped away. For all Seulgi knew they could have been there for hours, caught in that loving rictus, sharing something in that little bubble of theirs, her hands on Irene’s face, Irene stinking of sweat and gin and tequila and lemon, her lips wet and soft and Irene kissing back, kissing her and kissing her and running her hands over the back of Seulgi’s neck and roaming, roving. When she pulled back Irene looked as if she would cry.

‘How’s that?’ Seulgi said.

‘Well.’ Irene laughed. She blinked. Blinked again. As if by some property of magic Seulgi would not be there but she was. She was as real as the rain. ‘I didn’t expect that,’ she said.

‘Yeah. Sorry. I probably should’ve said something.’

‘I mean, I’m not complaining. Just a bit out of the blue.’

‘I didn’t really know what to say. Felt like you were pressing me for an answer, you know? So, that’s my answer.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I like you.’

Irene’s lips curved into a cautious smile. It was a smile Seulgi in all her years would never forget, never could. A smile to set the world at ease. ‘Yeah?’ she said.

‘Yeah,’ said Seulgi.

‘You sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure. I’m not the sort of person that does Maybes or I Don’t Knows. I just know. I’ve done it enough times.’

‘Done it enough times?’

‘Alright, that came out a bit wrong. I mean, I know a bit about love. I’ve lived long enough for it.’

Irene giggled. ‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘You make it sound like you’re a hundred years old.’

‘Yeah.’

‘You alright there, grandma? Want me to fetch you anything?’

‘Very funny.’

‘Thank you, I try.’

‘But seriously. I like you.’

‘Good,’ Irene said. She grinned. ‘I like you too.’

*  *  *
 

Those were her forgotten years. When she thought back on all she had done and accomplished in that time at university with Irene and the other three she found herself remembering it only in fragments, in vague and crude outlines, shapes of thoughts, like memories seen through a dusty pane of glass. It remained only as an outlier to what surmised a comfortable life, an event in and of itself uncomfortable in the act of being so difficult to place or remember while everything around it was as clear as water. Like a handful of torn pages in a children’s flipbook: some of the frames are missing, some of those individual thoughts and feelings and distant memories that amount to a greater whole, but the story remains the same.

And sometimes, if you think hard enough, you can imagine them. You can remember where each piece of each picture once existed, and in place of those tattered scraps you can form a new story where the old one was, not quite identical, and yet somehow, in some magical way, exactly the same.

*  *  *
 

‘I’ve got something to confess to you,’ she said. She had been thinking about it for a long time and in the end it came to her that she didn’t quite much know how to say it if she should say it all. It hurt to say it. Hurt to know that nobody would believe her. She looked at Irene as if looking upon something pitiable and insignificant. She was almost asleep, tottering back and forth on the edge of the bed, eyes drifting here and there, and she stank of gin and orange juice. She belched and laughed. Seulgi watched her until she was almost crying.

‘How come you’re not drunk?’ Irene said.

‘I am.’

‘You don’t sound drunk.’

‘I just don’t sound as drunk as you, is all.’

Irene giggled. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘You’re right. Yep. You’re right.’ She yawned and stretched. Seulgi set her palms hands down on her knees. Suddenly she felt very sweaty and she knew why.

‘Irene.’

‘You should’ve drank more tonight,’ Irene mumbled.

‘Irene.’

‘I don’t even want to know how much I spent.’

‘Irene.’

‘Yeah?’

Irene looked at her. Eyes that were barely there. Eyes Seulgi felt guilty in talking to, felt as if she were speaking through Irene. Or perhaps speaking to someone entirely different, like a second entity inhabiting Irene’s body, like something that wasn’t quite what she wanted, an illusion of a thing, like a shape seen in a faulty reflection. She took a long breath. Irene wobbled from side to side like a bobbingduck at a carnival and as she went her hair fell about her face. Somewhere down the corridor Wendy and Joy were still drinking, still laughing over something. Maybe in Wendy’s room. Yeri had gone straight to bed. Seulgi listened for a moment. She listened until she was almost crying.

‘Are you going to say anything?’ Irene said with a slur.

‘I’m immortal.’

‘You’re immortal.’

Seulgi nodded.

‘Nice to meet you, Immortal. I’m Irene.’

‘Very funny.’

‘Thanks.’ Irene giggled. ‘What did you want to tell me?’

‘That. That’s it.’

‘What?’

‘That’s all. I’m immortal. I can’t die. I think I’m going to live forever.’

Irene laughed again. With great effort she sat upright and then she let herself fall back onto the bed. ‘Are you sure you’re not as drunk as me?’ she said. ‘Because you’re pretty good at talking gibberish.’

And Seulgi looked at her with tears wet in her eyes and she forced a smile and laughed and said sorry and that was it. That was all she said for a long time.