"I'm running outta time,

'Cause I can see the sun light up the sky,

So I hit the road in overdrive,

Baby."

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Longer note at the bottom.

P.S. Spot the absurd amount of Weeknd references in this chapter lol

Maybe Yeri was right.

She thinks about that for a long time. Standing alone in her condo watching all of Seoul’s light bleed away Joohyun thinks about everything. The cold loneliness of her home. Everything curiously untouched. Perhaps that naivety is what she needed. Perhaps it still is. The reality of the situation is that her heart still aches and no amount of distracting herself with work-related calls or parties can stop that. Even attempting such feels like a betrayal of Seulgi, of the trust and the bond they shared.

Why am I like this? she asks herself. Why. Have I ever been like this before?

She thinks about her life up until this point, all twenty-eight years of it, whether in some way it’s all been moving towards this, and if she were a believer of fate she’d think it were. The mechanisms of her destiny have been put into place. The Countach sits driverless in the parkinglot. The thought of selling it crosses her mind. It’s her perfect wanderlust, her getaway from the world at large, but sitting behind the seat all she can think about is Seulgi. Seulgi should be here, should be next to me. Should be asking me something. Should be sitting in silence and smiling and enjoying it all like she used to. Like we did together.

Every song, every word. All it does is bring back Seulgi. Like some awful waking dream, where all paths lead unceremoniously back to her. Seulgi Seulgi Seulgi. Her co-workers and agents ask her what’s up. Tell her she’s looking blue. A bit under the weather. And part of her wants to admit it all, but they wouldn’t understand. Lovesickness isn’t strong enough a word for this. Nothing is accurate enough. She tries to sleep even though it’s barely eight PM. Watching the ceiling as if it may move or pose for her some question out of which she can fathom the answer for it all. After a while she gets up and grabs her jacket and her car keys and decides that there is no moment like the present. It only comes around once. Miss it and spend every following moment regretting, and regret is the worst thing of all. Regret cannot be altered, because the past is forever locked away. Tampering with it is impossible. So with her heart empty and her head racing Joohyun climbs into the driver’s seat of the Countach and vows instead to change the future. To make it hers.

The voice comes through the Tannoy when she’s sat in the waiting area reading a magazine, suitcase next to her. The check-in hasn’t opened yet. She’s hours early. A soft pink sun crests the low horizon in a pale shower of light and the morning seems to be crying. The disembodied voice calls a second time, and this time Seulgi’s paying attention.

‘Can passenger Kang Seulgi report to the reception desk by the front entrance, please? Kang Seulgi to the reception desk at the front entrance.’

She stops and waits and listens. The dumb and sleepy part of her brain thinks: My name is Kang Seulgi. What a strange coincidence.

‘Kang Seulgi, gate seven to Jeju Island. Please report to the reception desk by the front entrance.’

She checks her watch. Her flight’s at eight AM and it’s just turned six. Maybe I’ve forgotten something, she thinks in a panic. Maybe I’ve accidentally come upon some illegal drugs and someone’s noticed. The sniffer dogs or something. She grabs her suitcase and hauls it down along the room and toward the elevator. One floor down she wheels it through into the main lobby, the huge glass vestibule glimmering in the pink sunlight. Her hands are shaking. The flight wasn’t that expensive but this is important, far more than anyone at reception could know. This holiday is more than just a getaway. The man at the desk in the nice uniform smiles at her and she smiles back affably.

‘I was called to reception,’ she says in a shaky voice, trying to sound calm and collected. ‘My name’s Kang Seulgi.’

‘Right,’ he says. ‘There was someone that called looking for you. Said it was very urgent.’

‘What? Who?’

‘They didn’t leave a name.’

‘Well, where are they?’

He looks at her apologetically, as if the nature of it is preposterous. ‘She said she would be waiting in the parkinglot.’

‘She? Who?’

‘I don’t know, I’m sorry. She said it was urgent.’

‘Did she not leave a name? A number? Anything?’

‘No. Sorry.’

‘What did she look like?’

He glances at her uneasily. Thinking that it would be too stupid to tell her it was movie star Bae Irene. So instead he says, ‘About your height, a little smaller. Long dark hair. Wearing a black jacket.’

Seulgi stops. Everything but her heart slows. ‘Where did she say again?’ she asks.

‘In the parkinglot.’

‘Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much.’

By the time she makes it outside in the bitter cold her arms are aching from dragging the suitcase and her heart feels as if it might jump out of her caged chest and shatter. The sun greets her newly crowned and very pretty in a dome of pink. She looks about. It takes her less than ten seconds to see the white Countach three rows down, the second car in the queue. She’s smiling before she’s crying and she’s crying almost immediately.

Joohyun is there, closing the scissor door after her. She turns and sees Seulgi coming toward her and smiles the warmest and brightest of her slightly crooked smiles that Seulgi has missed so much. ‘Seulgi,’ she says.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘It’s a long story.’

Seulgi just stands there. They’re both smiling. Joohyun fiddles with the zipper of her jacket nervously.

‘How did you find me?’ Seulgi asks. ‘How did you know I’d be here?’

‘I figured I’d visit you tonight and you weren’t there.’

‘I’m going on holiday.’

‘I know. I asked Seungwan. She told me where you were going. And she kinda told me about your flight, too. Sorry.’

Seulgi looks about. There are cars everywhere but all empty and they’re alone, or maybe not, but she doesn’t care like Joohyun ever did. A lone tear falls down her cheek and she wipes it away and rubs at her eyes. ‘You’re early,’ she says. ‘My flight doesn’t leave for another two hours.’

‘I know. But I know what you’re like, always so good with your time. Always checking your watch.’

‘You noticed.’

‘Of course I did.’

‘Bad habit.’

Joohyun smiles. ‘Nothing bad about it,’ she says. ‘I’ve got something to show you.’

‘What?’

She steps around to the back of the Lambo and opens the tiny trunk and leans in to fetch something. Seulgi steps closer to look inside. There’s a box of giftwrapped Belgian chocolates and a bottle of champagne and a big piece of card paper that says I LOVE YOU KANG SEULGI on it and a heartshaped balloon on a string. Joohyun grabs the balloon and waves the string about with an awkward smile. ‘Surprise,’ she says.

‘What’s this?’

‘Thought I’d get you something nice. I know it’s cheesy. It was on short notice.’

‘I LOVE YOU KANG SEULGI?’

‘Yeah.’

‘A bit blunt, don’t you think?’

‘Sorry.’

Seulgi laughs. ‘Not quite poetry.’

‘Yeah, well. Never been good with words. It’s the truth, though. That’s what counts, I think.’

‘Suppose so. I like the balloon.’

‘Thanks,’ Joohyun says with a giggle. The cold silence that follows speaks for both of them. It asks Seulgi’s looming question for her.

‘Because I needed to be,’ Joohyun says, answering what was never asked. ‘I needed to see you. I couldn’t not. I knew if I didn’t do it now, I’d never do it. I wouldn’t forget, but maybe you would—’

‘I wouldn’t. This holiday was a dumb idea.’

‘But still. It would be different. And I wanted to tell you now, while there’s still a bit of hype around my movie.’

‘What do you mean?’

Joohyun takes a deep breath. ‘I love you,’ she says. ‘I love you a lot.’

‘I love you too.’

‘And I was stupid to try and push you away. I shouldn’t have done that.’

‘You had reasons to.’

‘And I still do. But I don’t want to do that anymore. I can’t hurt you like that or hurt myself. I know what I said and I stand by it, but I don’t care. I don’t. I think I can make it work. I want to try and make it work.’

‘You said it’s impossible. You said we couldn’t be together.’

‘ what I said. Forget it. I’m dumb sometimes. Most of the time.’

‘Is that just wishful thinking?’

‘Yes,’ Joohyun admits. ‘Yes it is. It’s very wishful. Maybe it won’t work at all. Maybe someone will catch us holding hands or making out in my car and snap a picture and blackmail me with it. And the general public won’t care – they’ll call it an invasion of privacy or whatever – but the directors might. The casting calls might stop. I might not get a job again. That was what I wanted to say before and couldn’t. And do you know what? I don’t care. I really don’t care anymore.’

She looks at the expression on Seulgi’s face – doubt, hope, a hint of yearning. ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Okay, maybe I do. Actually, scratch that. I definitely care. It's my whole career. That’s just me being stupid. I know that. But I know I want this to work. I’ve had time to think about this and I know what I want now. I want you. But I think it means we’re both going to have to come to terms with what reality has for us. What it’s going to mean. It means—’

‘I’m going to have to stay lowkey,’ Seulgi interrupts.

‘Yeah. Kinda. How did you know?’

‘Figured it out. It’s not hard. Like you said, a lot of time to think. That’s why I was going to Jeju, to think some more. And then some more. Maybe I still will.’

‘Might be good.’

‘Uh huh.’

The silence is comfortable this time. Their dynamic has altered again and Seulgi can feel it. They both can. ‘There are things about this I can’t change,’ Joohyun says. ‘Believe me, I wish I could. Everything I said about it being risky, about potentially losing my job, about people potentially hounding you and hurting you, it’s all true. It might still happen. But I know now that pushing you away is stupid. Was stupid. The best remedy for almost anything is pure, old-fashioned honesty, and I think this is one of those times. I almost destroyed it between us, and right now it feels like this is everything I know. I feel like I’m in way over my head. But like I said, I want this to work. God, I feel like I’m just repeating myself. But if you’ve been thinking and you’ve come to the opposite conclusion, that’s fine. Well, not fine. But…you know. I won’t hold it against you. Well, maybe a little.’

Seulgi giggles. She spends a good long time looking at Joohyun there, not at all a dream she has devised out of the cold morning. ‘I want it to work,’ she says quietly. The surety of it is shaky, but what else is there to say? Reality is good when it is honest. ‘Even with everything you’ve talked about, I still want to make it work. I want to try and put it all back together.’

‘Same,’ Joohyun says. ‘And that is wishful thinking, I know that. It’s naïve and innocent and maybe a bit childish of me, of both of us, but whatever. I can’t pretend anymore. Sometimes the best thing you can do is just be a little bit childish. I wear my emotions on my sleeve and it’s the worst part of my character but in times like this I think it might just be the best as well. So, yeah. I love you. I know I love you. And you love me too.’

‘Yeah,’ Seulgi says, voice little more than a happy whimper. ‘I do.’

‘Well then.’

‘What now?’

Joohyun looks at the balloon and lets it go. It wafts away delicately, smaller and smaller and smaller. Soon it’s gone, a thousand miles away, lost to the pink morning sky. ‘I love you,’ Joohyun says again. ‘I want you to know that.’

‘So you came all this way? To say this?’

‘It’s not that.’

‘In your car, this early in the morning.’

‘Yeah.’

‘And you didn’t even know if I’d be here.’

Joohyun shrugs.

‘I could’ve still been at home. In bed.’

‘Maybe.’

‘I could’ve been on a different flight.’

‘Could’ve been.’

‘I could’ve been sick or something. Seungwan might’ve been lying.’

‘Yeah,’ Joohyun says, amused. ‘But she wasn’t, was she?’

‘No. She wasn’t.’

‘Are there any spare tickets for the flight?’

‘No, it’s fully booked. I had to get mine at the last minute.’

‘Well then.’

She waits. Seulgi waits too, quiet and savouring the moment, hands in her pockets. She looks at Joohyun and blinks and tries to tell herself it isn’t a dream. And far behind her the sun lights up the sky once more, a delicate rosy halo. ‘Are you going to reimburse me?’ she says.

‘What?’

‘If I miss my flight. It’ll be because of you.’

‘You can go, you know.’

‘Sure. Bye.’

‘Wait,’ Joohyun says. It takes her a moment to notice Seulgi’s laughing. ‘I didn’t mean that. I’ll pay the ticket. Just…you know. Don’t go.’

‘Stay?’

‘Stay. Please.’

‘I’ve already booked it off.’

‘Then don’t go to work. Come with me.’

‘Where?’

‘Wherever,’ Joohyun says, naïve and vague and infatuated with wanderlust and in love with every moment. She steps closer to Seulgi and cups her face and kisses her there in the parkinglot, warm and tender and full of the love that Seulgi has so desperately missed. ‘I should’ve called,’ she says when she pulls back. ‘I’ve been on my own for long enough.’

‘Me too.’

‘I was going through withdrawals, you know. And not from the cigarettes.’

Seulgi giggles.

‘Couldn’t see clearly at all.’

‘Right.’

‘Was just thinking of you all the time.’

‘Uh huh.’

‘Couldn’t sleep.’

‘Yep.’

‘Felt like I was drowning.’

‘Are you trying to butter up to me?’

‘A little,’ Joohyun says. ‘Is it working?’

‘Not really.’

‘I missed you.’

‘I missed you too,’ Seulgi says with a smile. She pulls Joohyun in by the shirt and kisses her softly again. She smells of sandalwood and jasmine and the fresh air, the best thing Seulgi has ever smelt. ‘I love you,’ she mumbles. ‘Let’s go for a drive.’

‘Where to?’

‘Anywhere at all. And put on some cheesy synth pop music as well.’

‘I’ve got no disco balls.’

‘I don’t care. Just drive me somewhere. Somewhere we can get lost for a while.’

Joohyun smiles again. It’s a smile to set the world at peace. To ease them slowly into a dream of their own design. ‘Okay,’ she says softly. ‘Wherever you want. Whenever.’

‘Forever.’

‘Yeah. Forever.’

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Well, that's the end already! Apologies for it being quite short/hurried but I am so infatuated with this song that I just had to write something, anything, based off of it. I know it's not my best but I enjoyed writing it and I hope you enjoyed reading it as well. Please consider leaving an upvote if you haven't already. Thanks as always <3  :)