Exactly one week after Seulgi left, the phone rings in the middle of the night. Joohyun groans, flipping onto her back and blindly reaching for it. She blinks blearily at the screen.

Unknown Number

Her breath hitches. For a long moment, Joohyun can do nothing but stare at the two words - how have they come to mean so much to her? - before accepting the call with trembling fingers.

“Hello?” she says, hesitant.

“Joohyun.”

From the other end comes the soft reply. It’s the most perfect sound she’s ever heard.

“Jesus Christ, Seulgi,” Joohyun jolts, jumping out of bed and stumbling several paces. “Where have you been?”

“I,” the connection is terrible. She can barely make out Seulgi’s words. “I wasn’t going to call you, but...”

Dread seeps into her, infiltrating her thoughts and swarming her mind. She swallows thickly, the moment of joy forgotten. “Seulgi, where are you? I’ll come pick you up.”

“No, Joohyun. Don’t. I just have one request, then I won’t bother you again. Okay?”

Joohyun doesn’t know what to say. She feels helpless, confused, longing. Seulgi isn’t bothering her, not in the slightest. She misses Seulgi in ways she hasn’t missed anyone since Jennie. Her absence is an ever gaping wound.

“Seulgi, will you just -”

“Joohyun,” she snaps, voice curt. It is a tone Seulgi never used with her. “Listen to me. Please. Can you check the San Francisco SPCA (Society of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) and see if Atticus is there?”

Seulgi’s voice wavers and Joohyun’s blood runs cold. Something is wrong, something is seriously not right if Seulgi isn’t with Atticus. They are always together, a team - she couldn't imagine one without the other.

“Seulgi, please,” Joohyun’s voice is desperate and hollow. She hates the weakness, but it’s the last thing she can do. She is practically begging, and swallows bile at the submissive act. “What happened?”

“I got caught,” her voice is flat, expressionless. It is as if she’s separated herself from the situation. By the rasp in her voice Joohyun knows she’s tired. “They caught me defacing public property. Painting a mural. I’m in a holding cell, but I’m totally fine, I promise.”

Joohyun hardly lets her finish the sentence before she slams the phone down, grabbing her keys and sprinting out the door faster than she ever has before. As she races down the stairs the pieces all slot into place. She knows the girl would never tell her where she is. Seulgi was caught, Atticus was given to the nearest pound. She’s not even angry, because Seulgi did nothing wrong. She was creating something beautiful out of nothing, just like she had transformed the empty shell of Joohyun herself.

Seulgi didn’t have the money to pay bail, and she was too proud, too stubborn, to call. Joohyun would pay in a heartbeat - why didn’t Seulgi come to her? Of course, it was so typical Seulgi that she only reached out because of her dog’s well-being. As she jogs to the garage, she asks Siri for police stations with holding cells in the San Francisco parameters.

“I’m sorry, Joohyun. I can’t seem to find any results for ‘Polis Cells’,” Siri relays.

“ you, Siri!” she shouts at the inanimate object, her voice bouncing off the concrete walls. ‘I’m just glad no one had to witness that.’

She manually Googles it herself, grumbling about the precious lost seconds, and puts the first into Google Maps. She will find Seulgi if it takes all night.

Joohyun drives numbly, thankful that the streets are mostly deserted. Her heart is going wild in her chest with no sign of stopping, and her hands itch against the steering wheel. Her mind wanders to her conversation with Taeyeon several days ago.

“You have no idea, do you?”

Joohyun almost slams on the breaks as the realization hits her head-on.

She loves Seulgi. Joohyun is terrified because wants to hold Seulgi and treasure her in the most disgustingly domestic ways. She wants to make her breakfast in bed and meet her friends and take Seulgi to work functions with her. She wants to kiss her awake and kiss her goodnight and hold her hand.

She even wants the stupid dog to be a permanent fixture in her life, with his endless shedding and drool. She wants to eat a billion more of Seulgi’s burnt cookies and listen to her singing at 6:00 AM. She wants to fill her life with Seulgi’s art.

Joohyun doesn’t deserve her. Seulgi deserves so much more, someone who’s not broken and weighed down by the past. She knows it so absolutely; not a trace of doubt crosses her thoughts. She will help Seulgi and swallow her tongue. She will watch Seulgi leave, to find better things, and not look back. Joohyun will be happy for her, despite the despair already flooding her insides. It is inevitable. Seulgi cannot possibly feel the same, and even if she did, then she was misguided. Joohyun would help her and watch her leave.

She wipes the tears blurring her vision and takes a shaky breath. Joohyun turns onto a side street, hoping she will see the blonde soon.

Joohyun doesn’t know how many hours have passed when she finally walks into the last San Francisco police station. Her exhaustion has turned into numbness, as if she is living someone else’s life. She pushes through the front door and strides to the front desk. The attendant looks up immediately, a smile plastered on her face.

“Hello, ma’am, what can I do for -”

“Seulgi Kang. Where is she?”

The woman blinks. Joohyun is impatient with her slow reflexes, though she does remember it’s almost 1 am. “Alright, if you would just hold on-”

“I’m here for Seulgi Kang. I’ll pay whatever bail is posted-”

“Joohyun?”

She freezes, mouth open, prepared to continue the angry tirade. Everything else fades until all she can see is Seulgi, standing not 10 feet away, behind steel bars. All at once, the Earth’s balance seems to shift back to normal. Rationally, she knows it’s stupid - but it feels like Joohyun can breathe easily again.

She is running, the desk attendant calling after her. She sounds distressed but Joohyun doesn’t register the words. Joohyun has run all her life, predominantly aimlessly, and now she knows exactly where to go. Not a single individual can stop her. All she sees is Seulgi before her, and all she feels is her heart in , until she reaches the cell bars. Seulgi rises to meet her. Her hair is matted, the braid long undone, but her tired eyes still gleam. She is beautiful and strong, even captured, like a pet bird.

(Joohyun hates when people keep birds as pets, wings clipped.)

Joohyun needs to release her, for people like Seulgi are not meant to live in cages. They are uncontrollable forces of nature, with the ability to destroy or preserve anything in their path. Joohyun knows, without a doubt, even as she reaches through the bars and clings to Seulgi’s shirt, that the blonde could never settle. Neither could Joohyun - they are both warriors, always needing a challenge, never admitting defeat. It was infuriating yet just the way of the world. Seulgi would not come back with her (not now, not ever) if she didn’t wholeheartedly want to, and that thought terrified her more than anything.

Seulgi lifts her hand - her nailbeds are filthy - and slips it through the bars, softly traces the Joohyun’s cheekbone. She clings to Seulgi and the blonde is staring back with the same amount of desperation. The metal blocks them from coming together but the way Seulgi looks at her is dauntless and sure.

Even as a buff police officer shoulders her away from Seulgi, the two never break eye contact. Seulgi speaks for the second time when Joohyun is several feet away, behind the dividing office wall. The world could collapse around them for all Joohyun knew, because all she cares about is Seulgi’s voice.

“Let’s go home.”

They leave the police station after what feels like years. Somewhere along the way, likely between endless stacks of paperwork, their fingers had linked as if magnetically attracted. Neither made any move to pull away. Joohyun can finally name the fluttering in her stomach, but deep down, she knows she can’t let it last. Right now, Seulgi is vulnerable and needs help to regain her footing, but afterward, she should move on with her life. Her future is bright and filled with happiness and success. She would be selfish to want to keep that.

Joohyun leads Seulgi to her car, opening the passenger door for her before walking to the other side. As the doors slam shut, heavy silence falls. The sky outside the window is a dark blue and casts a watery cyan light them. Joohyun’s mind whirls with all the newly-realized things she wants to say, but isn't sure how. She isn’t sure if she should voice her thoughts.

Her mind is stuck on an endless loop of ‘why didn’t you call’ and ‘don’t ever go again’, but she cannot coax herself into speaking.

The animal shelter doesn’t open until 8:00 am, several hours away. They flounder for some way to spend the time - Joohyun tries to convince Seulgi to take a shower back at her loft. “Not until we get him back,” she replies shortly, and Joohyun doesn’t push it. Her dog means the world to her, and his absence must pain her deeply. She accepts if Seulgi will not rest until then.

Joohyun finds a 24 hours diner with a flickering neon sign and questionable quality, but at 3:00 am, they have to work with what they have. The streets of San Francisco are never truly empty, but they look as deserted as Joohyun has ever seen them.

When she parks the car, Joohyun is hyper-aware of her hand tangled with Seulgi’s between them. She knows it’s wrong, but can’t help relishing in the moment. It might be their last, she thinks, bile rising in . Joohyun shifts her fingers slightly, and the blonde groans. She has pulled her hoodie over her face and slouched in her sleep, exposing a stripe of pale skin above her belly button. Joohyun grins to herself and pokes the blonde gently - she earns a yelp and smack for her troubles before sighing and stumbling from the car.

Seulgi tugs her along eagerly, their fingers intertwined, and Joohyun knows she could get used to this.

(She can’t.)

Exactly two people, besides themselves, are in the diner; a middle age woman working the cashier and an old, gruff man who loudly slurps coffee and glares at his newspaper. Seulgi pauses abruptly in the doorway and Joohyun almost crashes into her back.

“His expression is like you,” she smirks, tilting her head back until is next to Joohyun’s ear. She shivers from the contact, a reflex, and Seulgi only grins wider. The waitress looks mildly surprised to see them (possibly because few people come to dine at this hour) but she leads them to a stiff leather booth near a window overlooking the street. Seulgi sits on the cushioned side, and Joohyun opposite her.

If their knees frequently bang together, she assumes it is merely an accident.

The waitress soon brings two steaming mugs, much to Seulgi’s delight. She grabs at the coffee and slurps the burning liquid, a low groan rising in . Joohyun has to look anywhere but her when the sound is produced.

“They don’t have coffee like this in prison,” Seulgi manages after the cup is nearly drained. The worker, hovering nearby with a coffee pot for refills, widens her eyes comically. Joohyun suppresses a fond sigh.

“You were not in prison, Seulgi, there’s a difference-“ She cuts off abruptly when her friend begins to look uncomfortable. The topic is fresh, the wound sensitive - they will talk, in time. They have time.

Instead, she asks the question hovering at the back of her mind. “How do you know he’ll be at this shelter?”

“Oh, I requested it, so I hope so,” she replies, and Joohyun’s throat feels constricted as she imagines Seulgi, restrained by police officers, making demands and calling helplessly as they take her dog away. The diner suddenly seems too small, the walls closing in on them, and Joohyun abruptly stands up, muttering, “Can we go?”

Seulgi is already rising to her feet, nodding, and Joohyun throws a wad of cash (probably a bit too generous, but the lady was working all night and she deserved it) onto the table before striding outside.

They sit on the curb, listening to pre-dawn sounds, the ever present (if dim) noise of honking in urban settings. Joohyun’s heart hammers but she knows what she has to say. It is only right, though she is not strong enoug