Act III.

She stared upward; the air in her lungs escaped erratically and pain shot through her body like the knife that had torn her skin multiple times by now.

“Why?”

The woman shook her head.

“Tell me”, she whispered desperately. She needed to know.

“Because I love you.”

“What?”

“The price for my endless love is a few seconds of pain.”

She tasted metal and felt the urge to cough.
The woman she loved most had tried to kill her in either blind rage or delusion.
Before her neurons stopped working, she hoped it was the latter.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.--.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.--.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.--.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Act I.

“Oh my God”, Seungwan shrieked and widened her eyes in horror.

“Don’t worry, it’s just a small cut”, her best friend replied, pressing a towel against the palm of her left hand.

“A small cut?! Kang Seulgi, you’re bleeding out!”

Seulgi scoffed. She, in fact, wasn’t bleeding out. It was bad but it could be much worse.
At least in her opinion.
The slightly younger woman on the other hand was freaking out, running through their shared apartment and looking for the first aid kit.

“Calm down, Wannie.”

“I’m not calming down! I’ll never ever let you near a knife again!”
She ran back to Seulgi and forced her to sit down.
Then, she took the towel and nearly gagged at the sight of the deep wound.

“How did you hurt your palm that badly?”

“I wanted to cut a baguette”, she said with a mischievous smile.

Seungwan rolled her eyes and started cleaning the bloody wound.
Seulgi didn’t even flinch anymore. It was normal for her to get hurt by doing simple tasks that required an attention span longer than 3 seconds.

After she had bandaged her best friend’s hand, Seungwan walked into the kitchen.

“At least she hit the sink this time”, she sighed.

“Yeah, sorry. I’ll clean it up”, Seulgi mumbled.

“Your bandage shouldn’t get wet.”

Seulgi nodded and sat down on a bar chair. She looked at the bloody knife and the red splatters on the freshly baked baguette.

“It’s still good, right?”

“What?” Seungwan turned around.

“My food. You want some?”

Her best friend opened but decided to just shook her head.
Kang Seulgi was one of a kind.

Suddenly, they heard the lock of their door clicking and watched another person entering the apartment.

“Hyun”, Seulgi said, threw both arms in the air and ran towards her older woman.

“What happened to your hand?”, she asked in a panicked voice.

“Cut myself while making dinner”, Seulgi chuckled.

“Seungwan must be here, too.”

“How did you know?”

“Your wound is cleaned and bandaged well.” Joohyun walked past Seulgi into the kitchen.

“Wait, are you implying that I can’t take care of myself?”

Seungwan and Joohyun both looked at her and said unisono: “Exactly.”

Seulgi grabbed her chest. “Betrayed by my lover and best friend. What kind of drama is this?”

The blonde smiled. “Instead of studying design you should sign up for theater.”

“Don’t get her hooked on dumb ideas, Son Seungwan”, Joohyun said with a stern expression. “I’m glad she made it that far.”

Seulgi crossed her arms and started pouting. “Okay, now it’s just insulting.”

Joohyun was fast to calm her down by kissing her cheek while putting down her purse. “Love you.”

“Really?”, Seungwan grimaced. “Right in front of my salad?” She pointed at the mix of cucumber, lettuce and corn.

Seulgi shrugged with her shoulders. “I told you, you should start dating again.”

“And I told you, you should mind your own business. I’m not ready yet and on top, I need to focus on my midterm exams.”

“Uni here, uni there, chill your s, Wannie.”

Seungwan flipped her off, took the bowl of vegetables and walked towards her best friend.
“Eat something healthy and not baguette at 8pm. You might get fat.”

Seulgi stuck out her tongue.

“She’s right, Seul”, Joohyun said teasingly.

Her girlfriend scoffed and raised her tank top. “Last night you praised these abs.”

“Okay, that’s the last straw”, Seungwan complained and walked towards her private room.

“Thanks for your help!”

“Whatever”, she mumbled before closing the door.

“Did you eat yet?”

“Yes, I went out with my coworkers at around 6pm.”

“I already asked myself where you might be”, Seulgi left the chair and stepped towards her girlfriend who turned off her phone before turning around.
Seulgi got a strange feeling in her gut. Joohyun never did this before.

“What’s up?”

“Huh?”

“At work? How was the dinner?”

Joohyun sighed. “To be honest, I’m so tired right now. Let’s talk tomorrow, okay?”

Seulgi nodded. “Sure, I’ll always be here.”

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

After finishing their bedtime routine, they slipped under the covers of their queen-sized bed.

“I think Wannie is still struggling with her breakup.”

“It was time for them to split up”, Joohyun replied with closed eyes.

“How do you know when to breakup?”

“You feel the person slipping away from you”, her girlfriend whispered. “It’s not the same anymore. Everything feels like a burden. Coming home, talking to each other, trying to function like before or sitting beside each other. The only thing that comes to your mind is being tired of everything.”

Seulgi gulped while clutching her bed sheets. “Do you think she was tired too?”

Joohyun sighed. “It’s a hard decision to split up if it was a serious relationship even if both fell out of love, the memories linger. Everything reminds you of the other person because you shared everything for a really long time.”

“You sound like you understand them”, Seulgi said, half joking, half doubting.

Her girlfriend took Seulgi’s hand in hers. “Because I fell out of love in the past.”

“But you would tell me if my presence is a burden, right? I don’t want you to be sad or exhausted. Your job is hard enough.”

The moon illuminated their room with a bit of light but Seulgi had bad eyesight, therefore she wasn’t able to see Joohyun clenching her jaw.

“I want you to be happy, Hyun. I love you very, very much”, Seulgi said and the back of her hand.

“I love you too. Let’s sleep now, okay?”

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

“How’s your hand?”

Seulgi played with the cereals in her bowl and hummed in response.

Seungwan frowned and sat down in front of her best friend, a coffee and toast with cheese in her hand.
“What’s up?”

Seulgi shrugged.

The blonde began eating her food. “You know”, she said between chewing, “The fruit loops are soaked. It’s disgusting.”

“How do you know someone fell out of love with you?”

Seungwan scoffed. “I don’t want to talk about him anymore.”

“Please tell me.”

The younger couldn’t overhear the desperate tone in the voice of her best friend.

“Dunno. It was exhausting, like, everything. Meeting up, talking and so on. I forced myself to interact with him and neither of us had fun anymore. We played pretend for a long time and lost ourselves in the process. Maybe, if we would’ve communicated better, we