Kang Seulgi’s face appeared in the gap between the door and the frame.

Joohyun very nearly moved her head back in surprise but she did not give in to the impulse. She managed to appear cold and unsurprised. 

“What do you want?” Joohyun inquired informally, bordering on rude. She waited for a reply but no answer came. Her neighbor only stood up straight and waited for her to open the door.

Joohyun debated for a few second.

Maybe I should just close the door...

But in the end, curiosity won. Joohyun wanted to know...  wanted to hear what Kang Seulgi had to say.  Joohyun removed the security chain and opened the door just slightly wider— her body still poised to block the other person's entry.  She found herself staring at Kang Seulgi’s bangs...sultry eyes and exquisite shape of face.  Even under the poor lighting in the hallway, the girl looked like a rock star. 

Joohyun repeated the question. “What do you want?”

“I'm here to express my condolences,” Kang Seulgi said seriously, with a slight compassionate sigh.

That sounded convincing enough.  Joohyun could not detect sarcasm. Is she really serious?

“Huh?” Joohyun was truly baffled and intrigued. And quite starstruck! How could any female be so good-looking?

Seulgi’s body leaned slightly to the side, her neck craning as she took a quick peek inside the apartment before gazing down at Joohyun to say, “You mentioned a wake for your departed friend. May I show my proper final respects to your cat as well?”

“Wae?” Joohyun must have sounded like a dummy, throwing those single-worded questions. She probably looked like a dummy, too... standing there, gawking at Kang Seulgi. Holy mother of God, that face...!

Seulgi shrugged, “I’d like to say goodbye as a neighbor.”

“Why should we say goodbye?  We've never spoken to each other until now."

“Pardon me...” Seulgi drawled, her smoky eyes batting slowly... her voice uttering the words like a drugging, hypnotic song.  “I am not here as ‘your’ neighbor. I meant that I was the neighbor of the departed, too.” She saw Joohyun’s slight frown as she processed the logic of that statement. “We knew each other… your cat and I.”

Say what???  Joohyun gave her head a quick shake, as though a bee buzzed by her ear.  “My Da Ling knew you?!”

“Uh-huh.” 

“You met my cat?”

There appeared a lopsided smile... full of secrets. A little teasing... very naughty. “Plenty of times,” Seulgi drawled

Joohyun glanced at the woman’s slanted grin.  Wicked.   But not unkind.  Almost too friendly.

“And oh... by the way...” Seulgi added.  “I brought flowers.”

She brought Da Ling flowers?

Joohyun stepped away from the door and slowly pulled it wider until she could see the visitor’s entire person.

“Will you please allow me to offer my flowers to your cat?” Seulgi held up a rectangular stretched canvas for Joohyun to see. It was about a meter and a half wide.

Joohyun stared at the item held before her.  When Kang Seulgi said she brought flowers, she meant the kind that would never wilt.

Kang Seulgi brought Da ling a painting.

Ahhh... that's right.  She paints.  This girl is an artist.  Joohyun recalled a recent memory of a man yelling in Kang Seulgi's face...

"YOU ARE SO DEEP INTO YOUR ART, SEULGI!  YOUR ART WILL NOT FEED YOU!"

Joohyun grasped the painting with both hands.  The weight was light because the artwork was unframed.  She angled the canvas to the left and bent her head to the right. And then she rotated the canvas to the right and shifted her head to the left. There were lots of colorful swirls and blotches and slashes but… “Where are the flowers?”

Kang Seulgi’s hands enclosed Joohyun.  She stopped Joohyun from rotating the painting this way and that. She held the painting steady.  "You see them?"  Still covering Joohyun’s knuckles, Seulgi guided their arms to lower the painting so that they could see each other’s faces above the frame. “Do you see the flowers?”

Joohyun stared hard at the ugly art piece. It was as if someone had given a five-year-old a paintbrush and said, ‘Here, kid. Go nuts!’

“Oh, yes— yes, I see them now,” Joohyun lied.

Seulgi freed Joohyun's hands. “You do?”

Nope. I don’t see any damn flower. “Yup… I see ROSES.”

“Roses?”

Joohyun dared to make her artistic point of view sound legit. “Yeah.  I see roses in many colors.  And in different stages of bloom.”

“Hmmm…”

What did she mean by ‘hmmm’? Joohyun glanced up. “Well, aren’t these roses that you painted?   They’re OBVIOUSLY roses. Come on.  They're roses.  And they…?”

Se