"You always try to hide the pain,

You always know just what to say,

I always look the other way,

I'm blind, I'm blind."

It isn’t that morning. Something tells Seulgi not to do it. There’s a tension she doesn’t like the feeling of, a sort of instinctual thrum that warns her to do it another day, or perhaps in the evening. Instead she goes to work as normal. She sits at her desk and she makes three sales in the morning alone and after the third is concluded she turns to Yeri and Yeri says, as if on cue, ‘You looking to go home early or something?’

‘Just feeling in a good mood today.’

‘Any particular reason?’

‘No,’ Seulgi says, and thinks about it for a moment. Is it a lie? Can it be called anything at all, lie or truth or something in between? She isn’t so sure of that. For a while she just sits there. Yeri goes to lunch and comes back half an hour later still chewing on a sandwich and says, ‘You not eating?’

‘Not now. I’m not hungry. Yeri, can I ask you something?’

‘Sure.’

‘Don’t think I’m weird.’

‘Uh oh.’

‘Is this real?’

‘What?’

‘Is it real.’

‘Is what real?’

‘This,’ Seulgi says, gesturing to nothing. ‘All of this.’

‘All of what? I don’t follow.’

‘The world. Is this world real?’

‘Seulgi, with all due respect – what the are you talking about?’

Seulgi shakes her head and laughs. ‘Sorry,’ she mutters. She neglects to mention it again. But the thought lingers. There is the chance that this is just another siren world, another appropriately apportioned figment of her imagination given even more lucidity than the last. Things here seem more normal – nothing holds to it any extraterrestrial shape or function, Yeri and Sooyoung exist, SBI Insurance exists, Seungwan – as far as Seulgi is aware from her morning texts – also exists. But the curtains were purple and her bedsheets were too. She sits there until she grows hungry. Yeri is still on her headset. Seulgi makes a gesture to her and says quietly, ‘I’m going to grab something to eat.’

Yeri puts a hand over the microphone on the headset and replies, ‘Okay. There’s some cake in the fridge still if you want it.’

‘Yours?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What cake?’

‘Salted caramel fudge. Real good stuff. Take whatever you want. It’s that or it goes to waste anyway.’

‘Okay,’ Seulgi says. She pushes her chair back and walks along the hall. The aisles are the same dull cubicles row on row with people thumbing away like rats in a lab, spokes in a wheel. Sooyoung is nowhere to be seen and hasn’t been in since the morning. In the breakroom Seulgi grabs a plate and a slice of cake from the fridge and pours herself a cold coffee and stands leaning against the counter worktop forking up pieces of the cake idly. She thinks about a great deal of things. Her heart is still beating a slight too fast.

‘Get it together,’ she mumbles to herself. It is a task of impossibility. She sets the plate on the worktop and slowly she holds both her hands up in front of her face. As if this might in some way reveal to her whether this is real or not. But the true power of illusion is in how very persuasive it can be. She stands there thinking on the past few weeks and is terrified by the prospect of not remembering certain parts of it. To Seulgi there is nothing scarier than the fear of forgetting. Of having done things and not being able to know it. She thinks perhaps this applies to the curtains, too. That at some point, perhaps even as recent as yesterday, she might have taken down the blue and put up a set of purple ones. And changed her bedsheets to match. This is a very real possibility. Seulgi is always changing things, small and insignificant as they may be. It is the curse of the never-settled to fiddle, to ensure things are constantly in flux, lest the erosion of familiarity begin to creep in.

The clock ticks away. Time seems to be moving normally. But then if her mind is truly powerful enough to create for her a hub universe populated by someone as perfect as Irene – a sort of glassglobe paradise that exists only to her – then surely it might also have the power to ensure the clocks run as normal. To suggest otherwise would be nothing short of foolish. Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams? Seulgi understands this as little as she understands the wind, or motions of the cosmos.

At four minutes past six she logs out of her computer and turns off the centre console and packs her bag and puts on a smile. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ she says to Yeri, not knowing if it is true or not, if tomorrow might ever come to pass.

Yeri gives her an idle thumbs up, one arm leaning on the desk, half asleep, listening to someone on the other end of her headset. Seulgi stands and waves at Sooyoung across the room and from behind her office desk Sooyoung waves back and turns to her computer once more. Everyone is preoccupied. People here have things to do, tasks to see to. Seulgi does not feel the same way. Her current existence is of a sole purpose. She pushes her chair under and goes on out with the cold of the paling sun against her face and she doesn’t look back for even a second.

The piece of paper is in her pocket but she doesn’t even need it. She takes the bus to the address. It’s an apartment building in Jungnang and it brings with it many memories. The first time she’d ever seen it was waking in the morning with a terrible hangover and Irene asleep on her livingroom couch in a knife of sunlight, two drunks in minor agony having altered their friendship forever. All it had taken was one night. Now Seulgi stands outside on the sidewalk as people pass. She observes them like animals in a facility, creatures formed in science tanks. They have form and function. Do they also have lives? Goals and aspirations? Do they feel anger like Seulgi does when confronted with a problem she cannot fix? Do they experience sadness like Seulgi so often has when alone in her room with nothing to keep her occupied? And do they feel pleasure like Seulgi does with Irene? Other states aside. Happiness would be a uniform difference.

She knows there is a very real possibility that they do because they are as real as she is. This is the true and proper world. Everything that should exist does and she is as routinely empty as her life has been for many years. She looks at the piece of paper once more for confidence. Then she goes into the building and up the two flights of stairs at the rear of the building to apartment number eighteen. The door is grey, a single small peephole and doorknob. She waits. Nobody else is around and for that she’s thankful because her heart feels as if it might give out at any moment. Never has she felt anxiety like this. She feels as if she might cry. After a minute she knocks and waits. The answer is a long time coming. She knocks again to nothing. The third knock brings with it a click of the lock and the twisting of the doorknob as it opens and her heart leaps again.

She’s greeted on the other side by a woman that is not Irene. She looks about thirty-five, short and dark of hair. ‘Can I help you?’ she asks, polite and yet a slight apprehensive.

‘Oh,’ Seulgi says. ‘Sorry. Sorry, I was just looking for somebody. I was told they lived here.’

The woman just glances at her.

‘Does Bae Irene live here?’

‘No, sorry.’

‘Are you sure?’

The woman’s patience turns sourer. Seulgi realises it immediately. ‘Yes,’ she says, ‘I’m sure.’

‘Do you know if she’s ever lived here?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘How long have you lived here?’

‘What?’

‘Sorry. I was just—’

‘Two years.’

Seulgi nods. She smiles because it is all she can do – put on a false smile. ‘Thank you,’ she mutters. The woman looks at her one more time before closing the door and locking it and leaving Seulgi there, locked out of her life, sidelined against the inevitable march of the universe. ‘Okay,’ she says to nobody at all. She thinks of nothing. The paper in her pocket may as well be torn to shreds. After a while she turns and leaves. Outside it has begun to rain. She walks with no shelter like a pilgrim searching out no light or salvation whatsoever. All the way home. Her phone reads no new messages from anyone. She understands that Irene is suzerain over her mind but she refuses to check whether she has Irene’s phone number saved. If she still has the countless hundreds – thousands – of texts between the two of them. What use is it? There or not.

She lies on her bed for the entire evening with nothing to do. The only thing to keep her company is the dogeared copy of Cities of the Plain on the bedside table. She thinks about Irene. What sense is there to make of it? To make of her. Can she be wished real by sheer force of singular will? Purity of heart is to will one thing and one thing alone and if so then surely Seulgi’s heart is the purest of all. But there remains still the paradox of circular reasoning – if Irene’s existence stems from Seulgi’s routine misery and the loneliness contained therein, does that same existence – as a panacea for said miseries – thus become invalid? Does she prove herself impossible? What can become of her if her entire reason is lost, if the very fundament of her creation is removed by merely existing? It is a conundrum Seulgi has no answers for because the truth of any such answers insofar as Seulgi sees them is a burden too heavy to bear.

But her existence does not need to make sense. This is something Seulgi has convinced herself of so utterly that she has begun to deny there is any possibility of the contrary at all. It is here, lying on her bed in the unkept darkness of her empty bedroom, hands settled on her stomach, listening to the silence of the world, that Seulgi resolves to make this her reality for good. What help has rational thought been? Any and all attempts to explain or legitimise or ground Irene in any sort of logic have failed spectacularly. Better to live in the ignorance of the pretend than to dwell in the pain of the truth. Rationality need not succeed. Real life has constantly undermined her at every turn. The void stares at Seulgi and Seulgi, in her newfound defiance, stares back. She says: I deny you.

Sometime later sleep overtakes her. She sleeps safe in the knowledge that nothing can harm her if she does not let it.

They’re in the bedside drawer.

Seulgi wakes up kicking herself at this realisation, at the fact she did not try throwing them before sleeping. Just to be sure. She throws back the red sheets and opens the top drawer and takes out the two dice and throws them immediately. They land on double six. Five more rolls all bring double six. She tries everything – turning them over first, putting them on every other side, throwing them at different angles – and they all come out the same way. The one other constant. Things are back to being abnormally normal. The cut on her finger is still there. She pulls open the red curtains and winces at the newfound light just as her phone begins to ring.

‘Hello?’ she says without even looking.

‘Are you on your way? Please say you’re already on your way.’

‘What? I—’

‘You’re still in bed, aren’t you?’

Seulgi just listens.

‘Knew it,’ Irene says with a sigh. It’s part annoyance and part endearment. ‘I thought we said eleven.’

‘What time is it now?’

‘Eleven.’

‘. I’m sorry. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

‘Okay. Please be quick.’

‘I’ll grab a cab or something. It’ll be quicker than the bus.’

‘Alright. See you soon.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Love you.’

‘Love you too,’ Seulgi says. She waits for the hang up. Then the silence that follows. While she showers she thinks about it properly. The most infuriating thing is how she is unable to parse anything apart. Was last night, last night? When did she make plans with Irene? When did she go along to Irene's apartment in some other world from this one and ensure she did not exist? Has a week passed? She puts the dice in her jean pocket and jumps into the earliest possible cab as it drives her to the hall in Sincheon. Halfway there she leans forward and says through the glass compartment to the driver, ‘Can you pull over, please?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Can you pull over at the nearest flower shop? I want to grab something real quick. I’ll pay.’

‘There aren’t any flower shops around here. Not that I know of.’

‘What about that one up there on the right?’ I swear there’s one up here, isn’t there?’

A minute later he slows the car and pulls over. ‘I didn’t know about this place,’ he says. ‘Don’t think I’ve ever seen it before.’

‘It’s been here years, I’m sure. I’ll just be a minute.’

‘Well. Okay.’

She climbs out onto the sidewalk. It’s a small boutique place with a green awning hanging overheard along the sidewalk. Three minutes later she climbs back into the cab with a bunch of wrapped purple flowers and smiles at the driver and thanks him for waiting. He drives her the rest of the distance in silence save for the radio. When Seulgi arrives the woman behind the desk in the lobby tells her it’s three doors down and on the right. Seulgi enters through a door with a piece of black card taped over the glass window. Inside is a huge hall. There are two black curtains hanging the length of the room on the left and chairs and other props arranged here and there and people stood about in small cliques reading scripts or on their phones. Irene is there in the middle. She catches sight of Seulgi and smiles and excuses herself from a couple others and goes on over to where Seulgi is still standing by the entrance, awkwardly smiling back.

The first thing she does is draw Seulgi in for a hug, close enough that Seulgi can smell the sandalwood of her perfume again. It’s a hug that Seulgi knows means she’s a slight reluctant to show any sort of real affection in public, much as she wants to kiss her for a long time. Irene pulls away a moment later with a smile still on her face. She is so beautiful that Seulgi has to find the right words to say. Or find words at all.

‘Sorry,’ she mumbles.

‘Yeah, you better be. C’mon. We should go grab something to eat now. This is basically the last day we’re gonna get to really go through it all and hash out the really important parts. So it’s basically as important as the show itself.’

‘Why did you want me to come along, then?’

‘Because.’

‘Because?’

Irene shrugs, a rare shyness to her. ‘Because I missed you,’ she says. ‘And because I perform better when I’m thinking about you. Weird, I know. It sounds like I should be distracted, but I’m not. You’re kinda like my personal cheerleader.’

‘Thanks.’

‘It’s not a bad thing.’

Seulgi smiles. ‘I know,’ she says.

‘There’s a sandwich place just around the corner if you wanna grab something there.’

‘Wherever you want. I’m not hungry.’

‘We could just go for a walk, then.’

‘Are you that eager to get out of here?’

‘Hey, it’s the only free time I’m gonna get all day. I told you this yesterday. What time did I say I was gonna leave?’

‘Like, ten PM,’ Seulgi says without thinking. As if it just comes to her.

‘Yeah, well. I don’t even know if that’s likely now. Maybe more like midnight, the way it’s going. So this is my break for the day.’

‘Whatever you want.’

‘A walk it is,’ Irene says with a smile. She tells the others she’s going and they tell her to be back before midday and Irene leaves with Seulgi in tow. They walk quietly for a while, an appropriate distance between them. Such that nobody would give them a second glance. But then, does it matter? As they pass by streets of waiting cars in the midmorning traffic Seulgi muses on this with genuine interest. Perhaps the same social norms and rules do not exist in the same way. Perhaps public attitudes are different too. Her and Irene could be as normal as she believes they are.

‘Hey,’ Irene says, very softly.

‘What?’

‘You there? Earth to Seulgi.’

‘Sorry. What’s up?’

‘What’s up? What’s up with you, you mean.’

‘What?’

Irene stops and turns to her. She’s wearing her hair pinned back and lovely and a grey sweater and she smiles and looks up and down the avenue and then like something illegal she cups Seulgi’s cheek gently and says, ‘Are you okay?’

‘What? Yeah. Why?’

‘You know you can talk to me about anything, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Anything.’

‘Irene, I know. Where’s this come from?’

‘Nowhere. It’s just, there’s been this look in your eyes recently. Like you’re hiding something from me.’

‘I’m not,’ Seulgi lies, and a thousand more questions run through her. Can the creation survive with self-awareness? If Irene becomes engendered with the truth of her existence – or lack thereof – her identity as a facet of Seulgi’s lonely desires, what will become of her? Seulgi refuses it. She forces another smile and says, ‘I promise I’m not.’

‘Okay. I believe you. But if you ever need to talk, about anything at all, you know I’m here. You can just let it all out and I’ll listen. I may not be the best talker, but I’ll listen.’

‘I know. Thanks.’

‘I love you.’

‘I love you too.’

Irene nods to the flowers in Seulgi’s hand. ‘Why are you still carrying those around?’

‘They’re for you.’

‘What?’

Seulgi holds them up for her. ‘I got them for you this morning,’ she says. ‘On the way over here. Consider them an apology for being late. They’re irises.’

‘They’re very pretty.’

‘I thought you’d like them. They were the only ones in your favourite colour.’

At that Irene laughs. It’s a sort of slight giggle that Seulgi doesn’t like at all – full of confusion and amusement. ‘What?’ she says. ‘My favourite colour is yellow.’

‘Yellow?’

‘Yeah. I’m pretty sure I’ve told you that, like, a thousand times. Like, half of my sweaters are yellow. Or mustard, I guess.’

Seulgi’s hand goes instinctively to her pocket, but the note is still in her bedroom. ‘I thought it was purple,’ she mutters, and it’s a meaningless statement, because she knows it is purple. Her favourite colour is purple because Seulgi has designed it to be purple, subconsciously or otherwise, just as she has designed Irene to like banana milkshakes and to work in cyber security and to perform Shakespearean plays and to tap her fingers without realising it and to enjoy the intimacy of Seulgi kissing behind her ears when they’re in bed together and a thousand other things. Down to the smallest, most forgettable detail.

Irene gives a nonchalant shrug. ‘Nope,’ she says. ‘I don’t mind purple. But it’s not my favourite. Probably, like, my fourth favourite colour. Thanks, though. They’re cute. You’re cute. Seulgi. Seulgi, what’s up?’

‘Nothing,’ Seulgi manages to say, with the faintest of smiles. ‘I’m glad you like them.’