Thirteen

“Joohyun, may I ask you something?” Seulgi starts as they arrived at a spot Joohyun told her about. Apparently, that was their place. Maybe it still is. It is somewhere perfect to see the skyline of the city.

Joohyun feels how Seulgi’s arm is wrapped around her. “Sure. What is it?” She looks up at Seulgi. Her attention is undivided.

“I kept remembering this person named Jung Krystal. Who is she?” Seulgi asks again. She’s been having flashbacks of this lady in her head for the past days and it kept bothering her.  

Joohyun almost chokes up. She doesn’t want to get angry but it seems like Krystal still has that effect on her bear. “She’s one of your exes, Seul.” She was so keen on making Seulgi remember her but it never occurred to her what she’d do if she remembers other people before her. But still she needs to answer this.

“One of my exes?” Seulgi’s eyebrows are furrowed together in confusion. “Just how many exes do I have?” She thought she’d be a loyal puppy. Most of the time, she hates her gut. She seemed to be trying to focus and pull the memory forcefully off of her brain.

“Six before you and I got together.” Joohyun answered swiftly. “And yes, you were quite a player.” She adds. “Yerim told me you were such a flirt in high school too.” She says calmly. She needs to appear unaffected with this. Though on the inside, she’s burning with fury.

“Oh! You know that kid too?” Seulgi asks, she remembers Yerim as her first visitor when she woke up from coma.

“Of course, she’s our kid! You made me adopt her!” Joohyun says in annoyance.

“I should take this in figuratively, right?” Seulgi is making sure. Does she have a child?

“Yes, you dummy! Why would you have a child?” Joohyun is now laughing hard. Her bear is still as dumb as before too.

Seulgi can breathe now. But then she looks at Joohyun intently. “I would. With you.”

----

Seulgi doesn’t know what to do. These newfound feelings she sparked for Joohyun isn’t the same as what she felt for Krystal. No, not merely a fraction of it. Maybe she felt a something blossoming for Krystal, but her ex just has to rub it in her face that she is so not worth it. This made her hurt her ego more than her heart. That’s why she isn’t entertaining any of those fangirls lingering around her for more than three months now. Maybe Krystal rejecting her made her realize what a jerk she is and made her think maturely about her life choices. 

It’s almost the end of the semester and Seulgi hasn’t done anything about the growing problem with her heart. She knows Joohyun, like herself, is a very attractive person. She always sees people gawking at Joohyun’s indisputable beauty. She cannot help but feel jealous about it. This is wrong. They only shared a date. She only said a couple of hellos when she sees her at the library with Seungwan.

In her defense, she thinks the feeling will be gone in a while if she continues to ignore it. But no, it has been three weeks since the date. She wanted to be with Joohyun but not to sleep with her. She wanted to really, actually know Joohyun as a person. And that’s a first.

Seungwan felt like something is wrong with Seulgi. Well, the confession of loving Joohyun is a bit too much. Even with Seulgi’s past girlfriends, she never heard her best friend told her she loved them. Even with Krystal.

Seungwan tugs Seulgi’s arm before the latter can go out of their shared room. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Uhm, to the library?” Seulgi stammers as she answers.

“You forgot your laptop, bud.” Seungwan points at the desk.

“What?” Seulgi eyes Seungwan. “I’m going to the library to read.” This is true though. For the past three weeks she has been enjoying to read some classics and young adult novels at the library.

Since the date, Seulgi always hangs out in the library. Well, to impress Joohyun and also see her. With time, she found out that she also liked re