Wendy raised her heels and weight on the balls of her feet, carefully tiptoed to reach a mug from the cupboard above her. She huffed in exasperation as she extended her arm, not able to retrieve the mug. She then gave up and took a chair beside her, slowly climbed onto the chair. The chair wobbled, swaying unsteadily from side to side, engendering her to lose her balance. Her eyes widened in fear and let out a shriek as she toppled forward.

 

She yelped in pain, rubbing her now bruised forehead and hissed as a jolt of pain struck her. She stood up from the floor and headed towards the bathroom to get a medical kit. She cursed herself for being so careless as she placed a bandage on her wounded forehead. Wendy had always wished that she was taller, it became a habit of her to blame her genetics for her height. Ugh, stupid genes.

 

The next morning Wendy woke up with a dull ache on her head, she stood up from her bed and walked to the mirror to see how bad the bruise was. She gently stripped off the bandage on her forehead, slightly flinched when her finger grazed with the bruise. A purple bluish bruise could be seen evidently right above her right brows. Her eyebrows knitted together as she absentmindedly stared at her own reflection in the mirror. 

 

Later at the clinic, Joy gave a questioning look to Wendy when the latter saw a bandage wrapped around her forehead. "What's up with your head?", Joy asked. 

 

"I fell and hit my head," Wendy cried. 

 

Joy clicked her tongue and shook her head in disapproval, "Girl, you gotta be more careful next time, anyways, how on earth did you fell and hit your head?"

 

Wendy shrugged her shoulders and explained, "I tried to get my mug from the cupboard and the chair was not stable......so I fell."

 

Joy leaned forward and tenderly caress her friend's injured forehead, her touch was so delicate and soft as though Wendy was made of fragile glass that tends to break. Wendy hissed in pain as Joy's fingers grazed against the soft wool material on her head.

 

"You're so dumb and clumsy."

 

"Shut up, I hate you," Wendy retorted.

 

Joy broke into a fit of laughter and stuck her tongue out, "I hate you too, you small thing." Though these two would always quarrel like siblings, they knew that they loved and treasured each other with every ounce of blood in their bodies. Joy was like a sister to Wendy that she never had. They had known each other since their college days, these two good friends were inseparable, like a stream of water that could never be cut through with a knife.

 

Joy had always stayed by Wendy's side through her hardship and difficulties in life, she was the one who always supported and uplifted her dearest friend, as though she was a beam of light that provided hope and strength to Wendy. Joy would do anything for her friend, be it standing up for her friend or even sacrificed her life for her. Some would find it absurd that she would do such a ridiculous thing, but she most certainly did not kid around and actually meant it. She had her reason behind it.

 

Both their ears perked up at the sound of the doorbell ringing, signalling that a customer had entered the property. The clicking sound of high heels echoed in the room, causing both of them to turn their heads to the customer. Joy raised one eyebrow when her eyes landed on the said customer. Wendy on the other hand timidly watched the intimidating woman with sunglasses walking towards the duo. She averted her gaze down and was welcomed with a familiar sight, Terry.

 

Irene took off her sunglasses in the most graceful way possible, as though she was the main character of a movie. Wendy was starstruck by the sight displaying in front of her. Joy found that the scene was rather unnecessarily dramatic and instinctively rolled her eyes. Irene cleared and opened to say something.

 

"I won't be picking Terry up today," Irene stated in a monotone voice.

 

Wendy immediately jolted out of her daze and heard Joy spoke. 

 

"Who will pick up Terry then?", asked Joy.

 

"A friend of mine will pick him up," Irene answered.

 

"I see, you will have to leave your friend's phone number and name so we can ensure that the person picking Terry up is actually your friend," Joy said with a smile plastered on her face.

 

Wendy took out a paper from the drawer and handed the paper to Irene along with a pen. Their fingers brushed as she handed the paper and pen to her. Warmth crept up her cheeks and at the speed of light, she retracted her hand. 

 

Irene passed the paper to Joy and without exchanging a word, she left. Joy had noticed the red blush on her friend's face and curiously raised her brows at her friend. 

 

"You look like a tomato right now," Joy said.

 

"Um, what? I don't know what you're talking about," Wendy nervously replied with a high-pitched voice.

 

"You look ridiculous, are you really that intimidated by her? Well, you should be more scared of me because I'm taller than her," Joy playfully giggled.

 

Wendy rolled her eyes upon hearing her friend boasting about her height. She had been teased about her height twice already this morning by her annoying tall friend. After that, they proceeded to their tasks and continued their work. With much care, Wendy nursed the animals and fed them; Joy handled the customer service at the counter.

 

......

 

The sun loomed in the sky, slowly setting above the horizon, colouring the sky with an orange and yellowish hue, making the earth appeared glittery gold. The alarm from her phone rang, meaning that her work would end within 15 minutes. Wendy had set an alarm that rang 15 minutes before her shift ended earlier this morning. She patiently waited for Irene's friend to come to pick up her dog.

 

At first, Wendy hated waiting for the woman due to her scarcity of patience, however, she had now grown used to her being constantly unpunctual. Curiosity rose within her chest as she had never imagined the cold woman would have a friend. She thought that someone like her would not have friends considering her cold and unfriendly manners. She was wrong indeed.

 

A dark grey Mercedez-Benz pulled up by the roadside and parked in front of the clinic. Joy and Wendy peered at the car through the large window and saw a tall woman stepping out of the car. The woman was definitely not Irene because the woman was much taller than Irene. Then it clicked to Wendy, she realized that the tall woman must be the friend she had mentioned earlier. 

 

The tall woman walked into the premises and strode towards the duo. She flashed a dazzling smile at the duo and greeted them in a friendly manner. 

 

"Hai! I'm Seulgi, I'm here to fetch Terry on behalf of my friend, Irene," she said with a smile painted on her face.

 

Seulgi's smile never left her face and Wendy was taken aback by her amiability, wondering how such a bright person could be acquainted with Irene, whose demeanour was the complete opposite. 

 

Joy's eyes were trained on the latter, secretly adoring how cute the latter's smile was. A foreign feeling bloomed in her chest, making her knees and limbs weak at the cuteness. Seulgi looked like the type of person she would protect at all cost, protecting her from the evils and wickedness of the universe. She was just too cute. 

 

Wendy made her way over to Terry and released him out of his cage. With a leash attached to Terry, she walked over to Seulgi and passed him to Seulgi. Terry ran forward as he saw Seulgi, circling and pacing around the woman in excitement with its tail continuously wagging. Seulgi crouched down to face Terry and softly the dog.

 

"He really likes you," Joy spoke.

 

"He likes me more than Irene," she teased.

 

"Yeah, I totally can see that," Wendy continued. 

 

Seulgi stood up and dusted off her pants, stooping down as an act of thanking the duo for taking good care of Terry. She even apologized on behalf of her friend for always being unpunctual due to her busy work-life. Her gesture had caught both Wendy and Joy off guard, as they most certainly did not see that coming from her. How could a kind and considerate person like Seulgi be associated with someone as cold and distant as Irene? 

 

As soon as Seulgi left the clinic, Joy and Wendy packed their personal things and turned off the lights in the clinic. Unfortunately for Wendy, her phone's battery had died so she was not able to turn on the flash on her smartphone. Pitch black surrounded them and Wendy had no choice but to latch onto her tall friend as they exited the dimly lit clinic. She had always been a little terrified of the dark.

 

Before she entered her car, a sudden jolt of pain once again struck her. With shaky hands, she fumbled with the car keys and struggled to slide the keys into the slot. A hand wrapped around her small wrist, she looked over her shoulders and found Joy looking at her in concern. She took the keys from her hand and smoothly insert them keys into the slot. 

 

"Seungwan, are you okay?", she asked, her voice filled with worry.

 

"Yeah I'm fine, it's just a headache, don't worry about me," she nonchalantly shrugged.

 

"Are you sure? Do you want me to drive you home?", she requested.

 

"No no it's okay, it's not that serious. You should head home, it's late now and you're probably tired."

 

"Seungwan, please drive carefully," Joy said.

 

Joy opened the door for her as she carefully stepped into the car. She the radio and played some calm music to ease the throbbing pain on her head though it did not help much. She had made up her mind to stop by a pharmacy to buy some painkiller for the headache. A familiar black car parked in front of a tall building had caught her eyes when she drove by the building. She then averted her attention back to the road and drove slowly with faint melodies of music playing in the background.

 

......

 

A few weeks passed by in the blink of an eye and Wendy had grown used to waiting for Irene over time. She seldom complained about the woman being unpunctual anymore. Besides, she also loved hav