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The President Game 
Limited Series 

The Date: Ep. 8
A new exposing targets the most unexpected student and shocks the school. Irene and Seulgi try to go on a first date but it doesn’t go as planned. Seulgi meets with an old friend.

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irene had never felt happier and she had to admit the romantic movies were right. having feelings for someone and having a partner was so exciting and it occupied her thoughts constantly. she had been so certain she would go through all of high school without having her first relationship, but here she was, blushing and smiling like an idiot at the school gates all because seulgi asked her out on a date. 

“what are we going to do?” irene asked, looking up at her curiously. 

seulgi fixed the pink bunny hair clip on the side of irene’s head, smiling at her and shrugged. “the most cliche date activities possible?” she replied. “the movies, arcade, bowling, ice skating, dinner at a diner…” 

irene laughed, “all of them in one night?” she asked. 

“why not?” seulgi said with a matching grin, staring at irene’s smile fondly before she gave her hand a tug, making irene step forward so their fronts bumped. they shared a smile before leaning in but before their lips could touch, a voice called out for irene. 

“good morning, president.” seyoung greeted with fake politeness as she walked past the couple. 

“good morning.” irene responded plainly, watching as seyoung’s eyes drifted to seulgi and lingered with an unreadable expression. 

seulgi cleared uncomfortably, looking away from her and back at her girlfriend. “should we go in?” she asked, knowing the school bell would ring in a few minutes to start the day. 

only mildly disappointed that seulgi didn’t try to kiss her again, irene nodded, walking hand in hand with seulgi towards the main building. 

the moment the doors opened, irene felt seulgi freeze in her steps and she too, felt a cold chill run down her spine at the sight of the lockers and walls plastered with paper in an all too familiar fashion. 

irene looked at seulgi immediately but was surprised to see seulgi looking just as stunned as she did, and irene saw an emotion she had never seen in seulgi before. fear.

“look, it’s her.” whispers echoed through the hallway and students stopped to stare. 

“seulgi…” irene gave seulgi’s hand a small tug but seulgi was unmoving in her spot. 

“seulgi!” joy’s voice cut through the sounds of the students hushed murmurs as she and yeri made their way down the hallway towards them. joy had a handful of papers in her arms that looked to be ripped from the walls and yeri looked irritated as she stopped to look at a student with his phone out pointing at seulgi’s direction. 

“what the hell do you think you’re filming?” she snatched the phone from his hands, receiving only a weak protest as she continued to march down the hallway. 

joy looked breathless as she reached them, “there’s too many, we’ve been trying to take them down but i swear more gets put up.” she explained frantically. 

“it’s alright. just leave it sooyoung.” seulgi said, almost emotionlessly but irene could tell she was clenching her jaw. 

“o-oh, really?” joy glanced at irene for help but irene looked just as clueless as her. “okay…” joy said. 

seulgi reached out to take one of the wrinkled sheets of paper from joy’s pile and held it up to read the printed blog post more closely. 

irene bit her lip after reading the headline, looking at seulgi with concern but seulgi showed no expression. 

“who did this?” yeri asked no one in particular. “we’ll make them pay.”

seulgi just smiled a little, placing the paper back on joy’s pile. “we should head to class or we’ll be late.” she said, worrying the others with her nonchalance. “thank you for trying to help.” she added, putting a hand on joy’s shoulder and joy smiled back. 

it worried irene more that she didn’t show any negative emotions; she would’ve preferred for her to get angry or upset as it would’ve been understandable.  

“i’ll see you later, okay?” seulgi gave irene a brief smile before letting go of her hand to head to her first class. she didn’t hug or kiss her goodbye like she usually did and that worried irene more. 

her mind was racing as she walked into class on autopilot mode. voices were muffled and she couldn’t hear any of the questions being thrown at her by curious and nosy classmates. 

“hey, back off!” wendy arrived at her side, shooting the others a glare to make them return back to their own desks. “are you okay?” wendy asked carefully, taking her seat beside irene. 

“mm.” irene nodded absentmindedly and wendy looked sympathetic. 

“i can’t believe it.” she said after a while because the silence was too awkward. “if seulgi got exposed, does this mean she didn’t do the other…” she trailed off, furrowing her brows in deep thought. “or it could be someone trying to copy her.” 

“i don’t know.” irene said, but who did it was the least of her concerns. she only cared about how seulgi was feeling and how she was coping with it. 

“did you know?” wendy asked curiously. “about seulgi’s family, i mean.” 

irene shook her head slowly and she was still trying to process everything and make sense of it. 

“there’s nothing wrong with coming from a less wealthy family, of course. and-and farming is honest work!” wendy said, trying to reassure her friend. “it’s just unexpected, i suppose, i thought everyone at this academy had to be, you know, rich… god, i’m not helping am i? sorry, i’ll shut up now.” wendy did a motion of zipping and winced at her own nervous rambling.  

irene smiled, “it’s okay.” she said. “i don’t mind any of it, i just hope she feels alright.”  

“i’m sure she will be okay.” wendy reassured. “and she has you.” 

irene nodded, giving her a grateful smile just as their teacher entered the room, putting an end to their conversation. 

>>

seulgi was already waiting outside the classroom when irene’s last class ended and irene was eager to finally have time to talk to her privately. 

“hey,” seulgi said, looking bothered for reasons unknown to irene and she took irene’s hands in her own, looking down guiltily as she exhaled. “i’m so sorry, but can we reschedule our date for another day?” she asked. “something came up and i have to be somewhere.” 

“yeah, of course.” irene said, looking worried when she saw seulgi’s distracted and anxious gaze that was so different to her usual confident demeanor. “is everything okay?” she asked and seulgi avoided eye contact, nodding. “hey.” irene called and she touched seulgi’s face to tilt her head to make her look at her. “talk to me?” 

seulgi gave a small apologetic sigh, knowing she hadn’t been communicating as much as she should’ve today. “i’m sorry.” she said again and irene shook her head. “it’s my mom.” seulgi said and her voice came out with a small waver. “she’s sick.” 

irene’s eyes widened, “do you need to go to see her? i can come with you if you don’t want to be alone.” she offered quickly, only thinking that she wanted to be there for her. 

“i don’t want to inconvenience you…” seulgi said hesitantly and irene looked at her like she was absurd. 

“it would never be an inconvenience.” she said gently, squeezing seulgi’s hands and seulgi smiled at her gratefully. “so we’re going.” irene decided. 

what she didn’t expect was for their driver to drop them off at a hospital that was located in a small town outside of the city. 

seulgi didn’t speak much other than the occasional “are you sure?” “are you okay?” check-ins with irene, to which irene always said yes. 

she let seulgi lead the way and her heart felt heavier when she realized how familiar seulgi was with the layout of the hospital ward, and how some of the nurses even recognized her. 

seulgi’s hand never left hers, which she was grateful for, and when they stood beside the bed where seulgi’s mom slept, irene felt seulgi hold her hand a little tighter. 

“how long has she been here?” irene asked quietly. 

“in and out, but almost a year.” seulgi replied as she leaned down closer to reach out and press a hand against her mom’s cheek, feeling the warmth, and she breathed out in relief. “doctors said she had a high fever earlier but they gave her medicine and luckily the temperature has stayed down.” she explained. 

irene looked at her, unable to imagine the kind of worry or fear that would be going through her mind when she found out. she couldn’t think