Author's Note: Gutendag, my beautiful readers! My cheerful greeting belies my actual mood, which is wanting to flip a table and praying it lands on the heads of idiots who've been annyoing me all week :-/ 

But I digress. Violence is never the answer. 

Or...is it? 

Kidding (I think). Thank you so much for all the lovely comments as well as the new subscribers and voters. Hope you enjoy this new chapter!

When Seulgi woke up, she first noticed that her tennis elbow was as stiff as ever.

And when she stretched, she found that other parts of her body (not directly connected to her elbow, that is) were inordinately stiff too.

She gingerly moved her hips and lower back, briefly wondering why those areas felt especially sensitive that morning.

She finally remembered while tracing her fingers in awe over a massive hickey on her neck.

Last night, Juhyun and I—

Seulgi blushed hard at the exquisite details. As it turned out, she and Juhyun were really good together. And wherever she faltered, Juhyun was right there, urging her on with patient kisses and whispered pleas for more.

Juhyun was strong, but also gentle inside and out. It had been strange yet familiar all at once: every touch, every kiss, every pleasured moan. Seulgi had hardly known what to focus on while Juhyun overwhelmed her senses all night long.

And afterwards, a flood of gooey emotions stirred deep within her when she was the little spoon and Juhyun held her for hours.

Last night had changed everything and removed all traces of doubts in her mind.

Seulgi got out of bed gleefully, determined to find Juhyun and her sugar walls and hopefully pick up where they left off last night. Then again, thinking about sugar was making her pretty hungry, so maybe she could make herself and her lady love pancakes instead.

She found Juhyun in the living room, sitting cross-legged on the couch, wearing only a baggy sweater and her underwear. Even more curious was the fact that she seemed to be poring distractedly over a familiar gold notebook tied with elastic.

Jakkaman, is that —

When Juhyun finally noticed Seulgi’s presence, she shook the notebook to and fro. “What the hell is this?!”

Aish shibal, that’s —

“My diary!” Seulgi declared in awe. “You’re reading my diary???”

“I found it open on the floor. You wrote about me???”

Oh no. No, no, no, no, no — NOOOOOO!!!

Seulgi tried to hide her inward panic. She vaguely remembered knocking her diary off the bookshelf last night, right before she and Juhyun had gone into her bedroom. “Everyone writes about people in their diaries, especially people they’re dating.”

Juhyun saw red at this. “By ‘people’, you’d better not mean plural…”

Seulgi’s eyes widened comically. “Anni, of course not! I’m strictly into monogamy - I swear!”

“That’s good, because your other girlfriends wouldn’t appreciate the sseulegi you write about them when you think no one’s watching.”

Dammit. She totally read yesterday’s entry about her nose resembling a strawberry, didn’t she? I knew I should’ve buried that deep down in my subconscious!

Juhyun waved the treacherous diary in front of Seulgi’s face. “So, what was the plan exactly? Get it in, then laugh about me with your friends afterwards?!”

“I would never do that!” Seulgi remonstrated, stung by the accusation. “I’m not some…Tinder creep.”

Juhyun let out an indignant sniff. “I didn’t think so either when I liked your first Tinder DM. It had a cute puppy meme in it…”

Seulgi’s thoughts raced and lapped each other haphazardly in her mind while desperately trying to catch up with Juhyun’s irate soliloquies.

“Juhyun, why were you reading my diary?”

“Are you seriously making this about me invading your privacy right now???”

“Um…kind of! It’s a huge violation!”

Juhyun in her breath dangerously. “No, you objectifying me and insulting me simultaneously in a book is a violation, Seulgi. Did you really think you could say all this on paper and get away with it - just because you think none of this is real?!”

This can’t be happening right now.

I must be dream - oh, dakcho, brain.

Seulgi began to despair when her girlfriend’s eyes filled with unshed tears. “I don’t get it, you didn’t even believe me when I said I was dreaming before. You thought it was a joke.”

“I did, and I still do.” Juhyun huffed stubbornly.

“Then why are you so upset with me???”

“Because you made fun of me in your diary! Why would you write such mean things about my personality and my physical appearance?”

“I-I wasn’t thinking! I was just venting - you know how I get when I’m sleep-deprived! I didn’t mean any of it!” Seulgi protested helplessly.

“You said that I constantly borrow your things! It was one set of earrings!”

Seulgi eyed her girlfriend’s attire dubiously. “You’re wearing my sweater right now.”

Juhyun glanced down guiltily at the rest of her body before resuming her haughty stance. “I was cold…”

Seulgi pinched the bridge of her nose. “This is getting out of hand.”

“Exactly! Since when is having an Instagram account a crime?!” Juhyun fumed, referring once more to Seulgi’s insidious diary entries.

“It isn’t - I have one too.”

“Precisely! You called me an ‘Instagram Girl’ - like it was some kind of disease.”

“Well—” Seulgi checked herself, clutching at her hair in exasperation. “Why are we even talking about this? It’s just some dumb I wrote in my diary!”

“It isn’t dumb if you’re insulting the person you’re dating!”

“That’s not what I was trying to do!” Seulgi protested. “I wrote some good stuff in there too - about how happy you make me and how it makes me want to be better for you somehow. Didn’t you read any of that???”

Juhyun snorted contemptuously. “I must’ve missed it in-between you saying my love of stilettos is an overcompensation.”

Wae, Kang Seulgi? Doesn’t your brain ever take a day off???

“Juhyun, you’re taking this way too personally!”

“Well, you made it personal!” Juhyun snapped. “Maybe you wanted to get caught.”

“What???”

“You pushed me against the bookcase last night, remember? Your diary fell on the floor, and you didn’t pick it up and hide it again!”

Seulgi groaned loudly in frustration. “Last night, I wasn’t thinking about my ing diary, Juhyun-ah! I was thinking about you and got caught up…in us.”

Juhyun chuckled mirthlessly and slapped the incriminating page with her hand “Well, I got caught up too - on just how immature you really are. You also called me a ‘sloppy drunk’ in your book of pettiness!”

“You spilled wine all over my shoes on Friday night - it slopped!”

“Well, I’m sorry for not being a neat drunk - and that you apparently don’t remember how or when we started dating!”

“Aigoo,” Seulgi quipped morosely. “Juhyun, you’re making too big a deal out of this. Lots of people forget important things about their relationships.”

“Yeah, like birthdays and anniversaries - not the whole relationship!” Juhyun scraped her nails across her face in pure exasperation. “I just want you to be honest with me, Seul.”

“I am!”

“Really? Because this feels a lot like my last relationship where my ex ultimately didn’t feel the same way I did. It led to an ugly break-up and a broken heart - mine.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you, Juhyun - truly, I am. But you need to cut me some slack here. I’m not your ex-girlfriend! Besides, it’s normal for people to not have the same level of feelings when the relationship is still new…”

Seulgi really should’ve seen it coming when Juhyun emitted a loud peal of laughter in a non-remotely funny situation.

Then she threw the diary at her head.

Seulgi narrowly ducked out of the way, the spine clipping her right ear minutely before hitting the wall behind her. “Yah, kamtakji!”

“We dated for a year!”

Seulgi wasn’t as lucky when her copy of Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe hit her in the stomach.

Ah. I see where I went wrong…

“She strung me along for months, then gaslit me just for the hell of it! Like I somehow misunderstood what we were to each other!”

“I can’t breathe…”

I see your thrown book and I raise you…PAIN!

“I told you all of this - about how much it hurt me and how I didn’t want the same thing to happen with us! And you don’t even remember!”

Seulgi frowned quizzically when Juhyun started pacing around her living room, muttering nonsensical revelations about her previous relationship.

“I can’t believe I ever let her go down on me! She screamed ‘Fighting!’ every time she made me …”

Seulgi snorted with laughter before she could stop herself. “Wow, someone needed a confidence boost.” Juhyun menacingly brandished another one of her books. “Jakka, jakka, kumanhe! Don’t throw more literature at me! Can we please just talk about this calmly?”

Juhyun closed her eyes and took several, deep breaths. When she opened her eyes, they were devoid of some of her previous anger and replaced with anxiety.

“Are you hurt?”

Seulgi lowered her hands, which had been raised in defence all the while. “Mwuh?”

“Did something happen to you to cause your…memory loss?”

Seulgi’s eyes crinkled in understanding and sadness at Juhyun’s concern. “No, nothing happened, I’m fine. I just don’t remember…us.”

Juhyun laughed out of sheer disbelief, not bothering to cover her tears. “You’re breaking my heart, Kang Seulgi.”

“Do you think any of this is easy on me?! I may not know much, but I know that I hate hurting you! You think I don’t want to tell you everything you need and want to hear right now? But I can’t pretend everything is normal when it’s not! This isn’t all on me, Juhyun! I told you days ago that I didn’t have any memories of us being together - you should’ve believed me!”

At the end of it, Seulgi was breathing hard and her lungs were on fire, like she’d competed against Bear Grylls in the world’s toughest race.

All of this seemed like an uphill climb just to descend into a different kind of hell.

The hurt on Juhyun’s face cooled, hardening into something far worse - resignation. “You’re right. When people show you who they really are, you should believe them.”

Seulgi felt herself deflate more and more. “Why are we even fighting about this? None of this matters anyway.”

Juhyun’s left eye twitched menacingly. “Excuse me?”

Seulgi smiled sadly. “This is all a dream, remember? You’re not really mad at me, but we’re also not really together either. Chances are, you probably don’t even know that I exist. I’m trying my hardest not to wake up just yet because…this is the best dream I’ve ever had. You’re the best I’ve ever had, Bae Juhyun. I finally realised that last night and I just want things to go back to how they were before you woke up and found my stupid diary.”

“So that’s what this is all about? You want me to stop being mad at you so we can go right back to having ?”

That’s not what I meant! I definitely didn’t mean that we should have again - or maybe I did. Stupid hormonal monchong brain - why do you hate me so much???

Seulgi’s eyes widened in horror. “No, no, no, that’s not what I’m saying at all!”

“Whatever. None of this matters anyway, right?” Juhyun wiped irksome tears away from her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’ve been patient, Seul. I know you’ve had a tough two years. You’ve been having doubts for months about our relationship and where it’s going, and I couldn’t see it before. I get it now. That’s what all this ‘dream crap’ is really about, isn’t it? You’re freaking out about how serious things are getting and now you’re just inventing reasons to push me away! Could you be any more ridiculous?!”

“Bae—”

“Just stop, ok! I’m done with this, I can’t be here right now.”

“Wait a second - you can’t leave in the middle of an argument! We need to get through this, I need to fix this!” Seulgi remonstrated.

Juhyun’s brown eyes flashed dangerously. “Do you love me, Seulgi?”

“Mwuh???”

“It’s a simple question, with an even simpler answer.”

“I know, but why are you asking me that right now?”

“Do you?!”

Seulgi knew right away what she should say in the moment. But like the fool she was, she went with the truth instead.

“Ne, Juhyun-ah. Saranghae.”

Judging by the look of surprise on Juhyun’s face, she clearly hadn’t expected Seulgi to say that.

“Mwuh?”

“Of course I do. How can I not, when you’re standing in front of me right now and it hurts to breathe knowing just how much I love you.”

“How can you say that??? You said you’re dreaming right now, and you don’t even know me!”

“I don’t give a damn about what I said! It doesn’t make it any less true! I know how insane I sound right now. But love makes you a little crazy, I guess. These past two days with you have changed everything for me. And this morning, I woke up, feeling happy and in love, ready to embark on this crazy adventure with you, not caring where it takes us.”

Seulgi went for broke and took Juhyun’s petite hands in her rougher ones. “The little I do know about you makes me love you more. I’m with you, heart and soul.”

Juhyun cried even harder at this and for a fleeting moment, Seulgi genuinely thought everything would be alright.

“Dream or no dream, I’m leaving. I couldn’t be any clearer.” A sardonic grin settled on Juhyun’s face despite her rampant tears.

Seulgi felt it the second Juhyun let go of her hands. All the life seemed to leave her at that precise moment.

Did I just fail some ed up test I didn’t even know I was taking???

“Bae…” Panic spread through Seulgi’s veins as she tried desperately to steer her mind to a safe place, somewhere far from this ache seeping into her chest.

Don’t go.

Please.

Juhyun wiped her eyes and marched into the bedroom without looking back.

Seulgi now fully grasped the cold weight of reality pressing down on her from all sides. And in that moment, she wanted to undo every thoughtless word she’d ever said since she first learnt how to speak.

She reached out for her girlfriend just as she removed the borrowed hoodie and slid back into her own clothes after the longest minute in history. “Juhyun-ah, chebal.”

“Hajima.”

The front door slammed violently a moment later, and Juhyun was gone.

Author's Note: Woof, that was rough for me to write :-S I love my romantic angst, but I should probably watch out for any of you tossing books angrily at me too ;-) 

Here are a few more Korean words and phrases for your information: 

1. 'Sseulegi' is 'trash' in Korean. 

2. 'Dakcho' is Korean for 'shut up'. 

3. 'Wae' is Korean for 'why'. 

4. 'Kamtakji' is a common Korean phrase to express surprise or shock when someone scares you. 

5. 'Kumanhe' means 'stop it' in Korean. 

6. 'Chebal' means 'please' in Korean. 

7. 'Hajima' is 'stop it' or 'don't do that' in Korean. 

Did any of you catch Juhyun's 'I couldn't be clearer' retort before leaving Seulgi's apartment at the end? That was a call-back to the first chapter when Seulgi first told Juhyun she couldn't be clearer of not knowing they had a Friday night date planned. 

I know, hold your applause (or books, lol) till the end :-P 

Please don't be too sad by what's happening in the story. I promise it's all leading somewhere good with Seulgi and Juhyun :-)

I'm going to make an early dinner now. It's probably safer to use knives on slicing chicken instead of idiots that annoy me :-P

Take care, stay safe, all of you <3