sinking down onto the couch, sooyoung simply breathes deeply for a moment, her elbows are stabbed into her knees as she buries her hands in her hair and squeezes her eyes shut.

a day without a contact with seungwan feels something has died inside her, in between comes a deep spell of the afternoon that pass by in a blur. sooyoung do not even know what to feel on those hours. a brewing catastrophe; an unfinished sonnet.

and then her mind, a mind that has its own, wonders how joohyun could endure it. she chuckles, the irony.

irene bae, the woman who had been married twice to wendy son for five years. a civil wedding was done first, and a barely year after, a beach wedding happened. the next year, she had already flown out of the country.

and sooyoung just can't figure out what the hell had suddenly gone wrong- it isn't helping as well that she can't get her hands on the information she needs from the said woman. there's nothing, only a blank page to look from, she figures the son's must've kept it discreet from the public. seungwan, after all, is the only child of the chief justice.

sooyoung has been staring out the window of her house for the better part of a couple of hours and nursing the same glass of single malt whiskey for at least that time, burning its way down, harsh in until the familiar heat blossoms in her stomach and spreads into her limbs.

she doesn’t even like whiskey.

nor should be here, locking herself up in her house to look for some person.

she is halfway finishing her glass when the phone in the countertop rings, harsh in the quiet space, drawing her back to reality. she curses under her breath, the ice rattles against the side of the glass as she slams it down on the counter before she presses her phone to her ear without looking at the display.

"joy unnie! thank god- okay, listen, i only got a seconds to tell that we got wendy unnie out earlier, had her hair cut into short and she also dyed her hair blonde. can you believe that? and oh! saeron told me she had left earlier to fetch her mom, she also got a haircut which by the way, looks so good on her-“

sooyoung frowns, doesn't like the where this conversation is heading to.

"yeri," she calls the woman on the other line curtly, cutting all the blabber down straight to the point, "are you basically telling me she's alone right now?"

the woman on the other line blurts out a "yes-" and sooyoung cuts right to it, too.

"goddamnit, yeri." she grits out, "i thought i had made myself clear earlier. do not leave her alone."

storm clouds are gathering as sooyoung heads for her car, but she doesn't even notice.

–

she creeps inside the sky loft silently, bathed in soft moonlight, barely peeking through the skyline of the front building. the loft comforting even in the dead of night with its sense of home, its warmth and innate familiarity. familiarity because of seungwan. but it burns in an instant. the thought of another person used to share this home with her soon burns the comforting feeling of warmth sooyoung feels inside, reminds her that hope is fragile and can be destroyed in an instant.

still, from that point, all sooyoung can concentrate on is making sure that instant isn't now. she's finding herself managing to smile as she makes her way towards seungwan's bedroom. sooyoung honestly has been expecting nightmares tonight out of seungwan.

and for the following days, she thinks. she had already anticipated that the woman would have some trouble sleeping, especially after that dreading dinner they had the other night and a ghost from her past was mentioned.

a ghost, sooyoung chuckles, when she hadn't even figured out what happened. she knows she shouldn't be all comfortable to call joohyun as someone from seungwan's past when the latter is still expecting her to come back. especially when she's been wearing their ring the whole time. yet, if there's one thing sooyoung is sure of, she knows seungwan would be haunted by memories and the person who walked away from her.

sooyoung forces her meandering thoughts to corral themselves, focusing back on her motive to check on seungwan first, hoping her constant bouts of worry, the desperate urges she deals with every night to constantly check up on her, haven't prevented seungwan from sleeping. but when sooyoung is welcomed by an empty bed seungwan is supposedly bundled at, panic surges into her chest.

sooyoung isn't at all prepared for what she walks into.

seungwan, god.

her arms are wrapped tightly around herself, and she's sobbing uncontrollably in her sleep, distraught as if she'll never again know the comfort of holding someone.

for a long drawn out movement it just blindsides sooyoung. her fingers lift of their own accord, find their way unerringly to seungwan's face, trace down the gentle curve of her nose, skid over her cheek, slide slowly back to the plump of her lips as she knelt down in front of the couch.

the graze of her palm must be comforting because seungwan's gasping sobs eases.

their eyes meet, hold, and the sorrow sooyoung finds tinted to seungwan's pupils mirrors the aching sadness in her chest.

"joohyun?"

oh. sooyoung doesn't say anything because in the moment she can't talk around the limp that's sitting now lodged in .

"that must be her name." sooyoung replies, cradles the side of her face. her thumb swipe at the trails of tears that delineate her skin, collecting seungwan's heartache at her fingertips with the help of the illumination spun by the moonlight, wiping it, taking it. "but it's me, sooyoung."

i'm the one who's here.

"sooyoung," seungwan breathes against sooyoung's palm on her cheek, "i-i thought she’s here. i t-thought she finally c-came back a-and," and sooyoung can't help it, before seungwan can even finish, her insides crumples a little, pulling her into her arms, enveloping her in heat and the illusion of safety.

seungwan comes unresistingly, her fingers clasp the side of her waist while she burrows her nose into her neck, and she shakes. all her trembling with the force of her emotions, murmurs a few incomprehensible sounds and the shirt separating sooyoung from her skin is rapidly getting wet.

"shh," sooyoung manages to murmur into her hair, laced with relief, because lord only knows what she is afraid of finding here, "i'm here, i've got you."

she does what she could, what she is best at. she’d protect seungwan in the only way she knew, fighting until the last possible second and never ever giving up because there is no conceivable way she’d ever give up on her, not without one hell of a fight. but she can’t stop wondering whether she’s doing enough, had been all that seungwan needed.

somebody once told sooyoung that ghosts never really left you, that you'd spend your while life collecting them if you are too slow to outrun them. they take up residence in the space between your ribs, in the silence between one burst of laughter, a peaceful night and the next, in the nooks and crannies of your soul. red eyes, sharp-toothed mouyths leering.

irene bae should have been here, should have comforting her like the partner she is supposed to be, then maybe, maybe wendy son-bae wouldn't be in the throes of what is obviously a horrific night terror.

–

the white, almost painfully intense light of the late morning sun illuminated the loft when sooyoung wakes up. she groans at the sensation of brightness poking through her eyelids and the twinges and pains that runs through her neck and legs. when she cracks her eyes open, a pretty blonde silhouetted in the doorway, the light from the large window radiating out from behind her, effectively hiding her face and yet presenting her to sooyoung like some kind of angel.

except that the angel is kind of , too.

sooyoung coughs, immediately sitting up from her previous laid down position on the couch, pain shooting through her shoulders up to her neck from the sudden movement.

"sooyoung? a-are you still here?" seungwan continues to call out, hands fumbling to the other pair of couch beside where sooyoung is sitting at.

for a while, all sooyoung could do is stare at her. how much has she wants this, to find seungwan in her mornings.

"y-yeah," sooyoung cringes at the way her voice sounds, "i'm here,"

"did you sleep well? your voice sounds hoarse."

sooyoung wants to answer it's because of her. that have she purposefully stumbled in the living room, only in her undies and a pair of button-down shirt that isn't even properly buttoned, her voice wouldn’t sound hoarse. but she's torn between staring at seungwan's legs in her appealingly white undies and staring at the glint of the ring on her finger. in the end, her gaze falters back and forth, back and forth, the toned line of her inner thigh stretching.

"because you're parading your thighs for me to indulge first thing in the morning," she mumbles, the words tumbling out of before she have manages to think them through, "not that i'm complaining, of course. you know how much i pay attention to art, and you're-"

"park sooyoung!" seungwan visibly presses out the words, while her hands reaching out down to her lower font to confirm, then blushes about four different shades of red all at once.

sooyoung's expression is all innocence, she didn’t think she has ever seen seungwan this flustered.

it's been such a beautiful, sunny day.

–

"please turn around." seungwan grumbles, being only reward with a soft laugh after.

sooyoung smiles with barely concealed amusement while her heart keeps on galloping in her chest, "i am, geez woman. go on, do your thing. your clothes are laid down right in front of you."

"sooyoung, don't even try being cheeky on me," she warns as heat flares in her cheeks before dragging her button down over her head and absently letting it dangle from a finger as she ambles toward her bed to grab for a new pair of clothes.

sooyoung swallows, eyes darting on the wall because she didn't turn around. no, she's not being cheeky, she just wants to make sure seungwan wouldn't trip, steadfastly ignoring the lines of her abs and the delicate lace of her bra.

for a moment, sooyoung stands paralyzed. exposed in front of her the elegant arc of seungwan's collarbone, the late-morning sun turning the sweep of her eyelashes into gold. sooyoung lets herself feel this moment. unanchored from steps and time and series of logical consequences, unanchored in anything but the slow and steady beat of her pulse through her veins and the play of sunlight over seungwan's face.

and then she unsticks to her feet, walking towards seungwan to help putting on her top.

–

morning bleeds into afternoon.

both have agreed to order their brunch outside then have it delivered as sooyoung finds herself laying down on the couch again, this time with her head on seungwan's lap, while the latter has her earphones on and drowning herself to the tune.

she forced her eyes to close with a heavy sigh, one which she couldn't hold in for any longer. she is still exhausted; tired that she could just easily have fallen asleep where she's at right now, but her mind also forces her not to no matter how much her body longed to fall asleep being this closest to seungwan and never resurface.

but it's as if the artist who sculpted the masterpiece in front of sooyoung has decided to sand down her sharp edges, seungwan seems softer, warmer, in her dark purple flannel pants and lavender tank top. sooyoung can't seem to close her eyes for more than a minute without peeking again to her features. 

her hair is now short, white even, just above her shoulder. that’s all sooyoung can bring herself to notice about seungwan for a moment, the utter congruity of it, but then her gaze drifts to the elegant line of her cheekbone, the sharp curve of her jaw, the delicate clench of her fingers around her phone and as seungwan comes to a halt in front of her, it’s all sooyoung can do not to pull her head down for kiss.

a hand on her forehead startles sooyoung back into the here and now, much to her immediate liking, and takes her away from her thoughts.

“you’re staring at me,” seungwan says after removing a piece of her airpods, not a question at all.

“how did you know i was?” sooyoung blinks slowly, tries to ground herself.

“i could just feel it and your breathing