June 2022.

Irene did not mention it again. Seulgi thought maybe that she had figured it some sort of joke, some vague humour that had passed over her head and so she had ignored it. Or something more sinister in origins. Maybe she thought there was something wrong with Seulgi, something very much unlike herself. And there was, and it hurt Seulgi each and every day knowing Irene would never believe her nor understand what was occurring because if Seulgi was being truthful she didn’t know either, and never had. What could possibly explain her situation? What but the universe. What cruel fate to be put upon her there so that she may never in good conscience speak to anyone knowing at some point she would have to say goodbye. She would have to leave them. Or they would leave her. Whichever came first.

After every day at work she would walk for a long time and in the act of doing so attempt to clear her mind but it never worked and never would and all it served to accomplish in its futility was to remind Seulgi of how precarious their position was and how it must eventually come to an end. The more she tried to ignore it the worse it became. The tears were common. The fits of crying in the park or by the riverside or somewhere high on Namsan where overlooking the fading city in each bout of darkness she sat weeping softly to herself and pretending that it was all going to be alright and there was going to be some solution conjured from the depths of some indescribable thaumaturgy but there wasn’t. And there never could be.

As she sat she mused on all her life had amounted to and all she had accomplished and all she hadn’t. She had lived through a war and through the death of her parents and she had been to more schools than perhaps any person alive and she had met friends from every part of the globe but before Irene she had never loved. It was almost strange, in a way. As if the universe in its inordinate wisdom had kept her from ever loving anyone. As if it were almost looking out for her. She had fallen in with boys and girls but she had never loved any of them, not really. They were just there. Just to pass the time. But Irene was different and she hadn’t realised it for a long while and then suddenly a year or two into their relationship it had become clear, like a dawning spark of light in some obscene darkness, something come up immediate and startling in its revelation. She loved Irene with all her heart and that scared her more than anything because she didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know what she could do. Love is something that cares not for sense and sensibility nor is it malleable nor can it be altered in any form to take on those qualities because love is, at its most fundamental core, the basest of emotions, the underpinned element against which all others are judged or measured or merited. It serves as some unique metric that is unquantifiable and indescribable at all points and exists in humans as in no other form of animal or creature and for that reason alone separates us on the most basic of levels. We each have the capacity to love and it stirs within us for reasons forever unexplainable and no matter what we attribute to it or its lasting conditions it is not cruel nor unpredictable nor of any certain quality by which we can ever measure it. Love just is. Love always will be just that.

What her heart saw in Irene was fathomable only unto her and even then by some metric she could not quite describe and what she truly desired eluded even her. The heart’s desire is the heart’s alone. The mystery of the heart and what it wants is that there is no mystery. Our understanding of a mystery is that it implies in its very definition a solution at some point along its own timeline, so that we may each in turn figure the answer to that mystery, to uncover something of its origins, its intentions. Its actions. But the heart has no mystery because there is no rational explanation for what one ever decides on or chooses for and no amount of justification will ever amount to anything more than naught. The heart simply does as it does. As it must.

She learnt that over a long time. She loved Irene’s smile and the shape of her face and how full of homely spirit her docile eyes were and she loved the soft touch of her hair and the way it fell about her shoulders and the smell of lemon however impossible permeating from her always, and she loved the shape of her body and how she looked in everything, in cocktail dresses and high heels and in loungepants and summer dresses and camisoles and in nothing at all, and she loved above all else how genuine Irene was, how kind and loveable and at peace with herself, how she remained so resolute regardless of her own convictions, and even when she wavered she held that same determination, that same inner strength. But with each quality she could list she realised that there were others out there holding the same qualities and some holding all of them in their own way. There were those somehow even prettier than Irene, and surely those kinder or funnier or with better smiles. There were those that maybe suited Seulgi as well as Irene did or even better but none of them were Irene. To that internal conundrum the only answer she could give was that they were not Irene, that Irene was Irene and no one else, and regardless of how aware she was of the illogical nature of such a statement there was no other answer for it because it was true. And as she sat there and asked herself again what made Irene so different from any other the only response she could ever formulate was:

She’s just Irene. And she has my whole heart. She always has.

*  *  *

‘Irene.’

She looked up from her place on the couch and when she saw the look on Seulgi’s face she set her book down on the coffee table and straightened up and motioned for her to sit and she did. ‘Are you okay?’ she said.

‘I need to talk to you about something.’

‘Sure. Anything. You know I’m always here.’

‘It’s about what I said last month.’

Irene just looked at her. As if trying to convince herself of the severity of the situation. ‘What you said a month ago?’

‘When we were sat here that night after I came in late. After I’d gone walkabouts.’

‘Right.’

‘I need to talk to you about what I said.’

‘About what you said.’

‘Yeah.’

‘About being immortal or something.’

Seulgi nodded. For a while Irene was silent. In Irene’s gaze she searched for anything she could read but it was impossible. As if Irene herself existed momentarily in some limbo where even she could not understand what was about to be said or what had already been said. Eventually she nodded slowly, a cautious nod. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Whatever you want to say. If it helps you.’

‘It does. I think it does. I don’t even know.’

‘If it means you’re going to be happy again.’

‘Happy.’

Irene shrugged.

‘What do you mean, happy?’ said Seulgi.

‘I don’t know. You just haven’t been yourself for a long time. I can sense it. Something’s up.’

‘How long?’

‘A year or so. Maybe longer. Something’s off. It’s as if you can’t focus properly. Sometimes you start spacing out and when I look at you it looks as if you’ve got the whole word on your mind. It looks as if you’ve got so much to say and you never do and I hate it. I hate it because I can’t help you and I want to. I do. I love you, Seulgi. But I can’t do anything if you won’t let me. If you won’t sit down and tell me what the problem is. What’s getting to you. I can’t do anything if you be honest with me.’

‘I was being honest with you.’

‘When?’

‘When we talked.’

‘Seulgi.’

‘I said everything I had to say.’

‘Seulgi.’

‘I don’t know what else you want me to do.’

‘Seulgi, please.’

‘Do you want me to write it down or something? Or do an interpretive dance?’

‘Seulgi, for Christ’s sake. Will you be serious for a minute?’

Irene felt silent. Seulgi studied her. The guilt she saw there in those eyes was enough to make her falter. Irene ran a hand back through her hair and shifted so that she was facing Seulgi fully and with her hands folded in her lap she spoke very softly, her brows furrowed, her face so calm and gentle, as if speaking to a child. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. I just want you to talk to me, is all. I want us to be honest with each other. Whatever it is – literally anything – you can tell me. I won’t get mad, I won’t find it embarrassing or weird or stupid or whatever. Just…please, Seulgi. Tell me, honestly. No more jokes. No more skirting around the issue. No more smiling and pretending you’re alright every time I ask you in bed or when we’re at the supermarket, because you’re clearly not. Whatever it is, it’s eating away you and it has been for a long time, and I can tell. You know I can. I know you too well to ignore it. So please, babe.’

She took Seulgi’s hands in her own. They were so cold and so jittery she almost flinched. ‘Seulgi,’ she said. ‘Come on.’

Seulgi tried to speak and all that came was a whimper at the back of . Then the tears in her eyes, and then Irene hugging her and holding her tight and running a hand through her hair and letting Seulgi go boneless in her arms and telling her that whatever it is it’s alright and it’s going to be okay, all she has to do is speak, is to just say it and Irene’ll be there. Will always be there. She cried for a long time. When she was done she sat back and wiped her eyes on her sleeve and apologised and Irene told her it was alright, it was good to cry. ‘No,’ Seulgi said. ‘No, it’s not. You don’t understand.’

‘Don’t understand what?’

‘I can’t tell you. I just can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s impossible. It’s unbelievable.’

‘What is?’

Seulgi held her hands up. ‘Everything,’ she wept. ‘All of it. My life. It’s not something that can happen. It’s an impossibility. That’s what it is. That’s what’s wrong with me. And I can’t say it because who’d believe me? Not you, I already know that. Nobody would. Nobody should. Better to think I’m insane. To think I should be locked up in some psych ward somewhere for scans on my brain or something.’

‘Seulgi.’

‘I’m a ing lunatic is what I am, Irene.’

‘Seulgi, calm down.’

‘That’s all I deserve to be, right? I don’t get anything. That’s my life.’

‘Seulgi, please. You’re scaring me.’

Seulgi turned back to her. She seemed so small and vulnerable there on the couch, obscured in the sallow lamplight like a ghost. ‘Sorry,’ Seulgi said. ‘I’m sorry. I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say anymore.’

‘Just say whatever and I’ll listen.’

‘How can I? How can I tell you I’m immortal and have you listen to me, let alone actually believe me? How?’

‘I don’t understand this whole immortality thing. Is it a code or something?’

‘See?’

Irene sighed. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Just let me help you.’

‘You can’t. Believe me, you can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘How can you help something that can’t happen in the first place? I’m not just an anomaly, Irene. I’m a medical impossibility. I’m a metaphysical impossibility. I go against everything you’re supposed to believe and then some.’

‘You’re not making any sense.’

‘No. I never have.’

‘Seulgi.’

‘What?’

‘Just talk to me. Just come out and say it. Whatever it is, I’ll listen.’

‘See? You think I’m crazy.’

‘I don’t.’

‘You do. Just say it. You think I’m losing my mind, don’t you?’

Irene shook her head and sighed.

‘I don’t blame you,’ Seulgi said. ‘If I was you I’d think the same thing. Because I sound it, don’t I? I sound like I’ve no idea what I’m talking about. And you’re probably thinking that whatever’s wrong with me is so wrong it’s making me act like this. But it’s not. Not exactly.’

‘Then just come out and say it.’

‘I am. Jesus, I am. What more do you want from me? Do you want me to prove it? Do you want me to run out into the street and get hit by a car and die and come back to life? Is that what you want?’

‘Don’t you even joke about something like that.’

‘Then what? What do you want, Irene? What can I possibly do?’

Irene moved to speak and Seulgi shook her head. ‘You know what?’ she said. ‘Forget it. Forget I ever said anything.’ When she stood to leave Irene took her by the hand and turned her around and told her to sit.

‘I need you to talk to me,’ she said. ‘For both our sakes. I don’t want us to live like this anymore. Hiding things from another. Hiding out feelings. Pretending we’re alright when we’re not. You know why I fell in love with you in the first place? Because you were so willing to open up. You were so gentle and so, so wise. You weren’t afraid to ever talk about yourself or what you were feeling or what was on your mind. What’s happened, babe? What’s happened to that Seulgi?’

‘You don’t understand.’

‘No. I don’t. That’s the problem. I want to understand. I want to know. I want to help you. You’re just not letting me.’

‘Look at me,’ Seulgi said. She was almost crying. ‘Just look at me. Do I look like I’ve changed at all? Since the first day we met, do I look any different to you? Do I look like I’ve aged a day at all? Or do I look exactly the same? You be the judge of that. You look at me properly, for a long time, and then you tell me exactly what you think, and you be truthful. You tell me then if you think I’ve changed at all.’

Irene just looked at her. ‘I’m not lying,’ Seulgi said. ‘I wish I was. I wish more than anything in all the world that I was lying, or I was trying to get a rise out of you, or this was some stupid in-joke I haven’t explained properly, but it’s not. It’s not any of that. It’s the impossible truth. So what else can I say? What else can I do? I don’t know and it scares me. It scares me so much. I don’t want to live with the thought of what’s going to happen one day and I don’t know how I’m going to cope with it or anything like that. I just want to forget about it for now. I just want it all to be gone, Irene. That’s all I want. Is that too much? Am I not allowed to dream, too?’

By the time she had finished she was crying again and there was nothing Irene could say that would get her to stop so instead she took Seulgi against her chest and held her there, soft and limp and infantile in her arms, and let her cry until she could cry no more, and when she had finished she sat there listening to the steady rise of Seulgi’s chest and the mute pumping of her chest until she was crying too, and it was a long time before either of them slept, and when they did it was in silence, and with Seulgi curled childlike and insignificant in Irene’s arms, her world in full, her whole entire reason.