Chapter 17

Irene. Irene. Irene.

Is all that runs through SeulGi’s mind as she holds the person bearing that name tightly and closer to her.

SeulGi clenches her hands firmly on Irene as her lips stay put on the latter’s skin. SeulGi feels the tingles run through her body as she also senses Irene’s own pair on her.

SeulGi must be crazy for even thinking of biting Irene’s neck – sinking teeth on Irene’s pulse point, labelling her with SeulGi’s mark.

But SeulGi does not.

She can’t even breathe Irene’s name as her lips attach themselves to Irene, never wanting to leave Irene anymore.

She can feel the brunette’s hands tangle and untangle by her waist. Like Irene doesn’t know where to place them next.

Has the situation gone awkward? SeulGi hopes not.

Not when she finally admits to herself that she has been harbouring feelings for the older girl, not when she finally acknowledges the feelings stirring in her insides – stirring her insides.

Not when she finally confesses that she’s in love.

In love with her everyday pain in the neck. In love with the of a princess she had once loathed. In love with Irene who messes with her mind, and with her heart.

Though SeulGi lets it be now, now that she’s smitten.

She feels Irene stir. SeulGi wishes that Irene speaks now so she will feel less awkward.

“SeulGi,” Irene softly calls, hands still twined on the blonde’s waist.

SeulGi can feel her heart rising and falling in uneven beats as she fears that it might burst any second. Any second longer that she holds Irene locked in her arms.

Safe, secured, protected.

Like something would harm the older girl.

Something really did because Irene grunts as soon as she hears the voice of her cousin calling.

Calling for SeulGi.

Even before SeulGi can reply – to either him or Irene.

“Damned jerk.” SeulGi hears Irene mutter in annoyance.

SeulGi feels weight been put on her shoulders the moment Irene pulls away from her. Unlatching their tangled bodies, taking her heat with her, taking the warmth in SeulGi’s heart that only Irene can bring.

“Stupid Henry.” Irene murmurs again.

SeulGi only blinks as she doesn’t know what to do with her freed body – body searching for familiar touches. Surprising her in ways since she doesn’t usually crave for physical contact.

Irene looks at her, and so SeulGi dreads for her poor heart once more.

“Your boyfriend’s looking for you.” Irene says without emotions.

“H-He’s not my boyfriend.” SeulGi stutters, blinking rapidly as she does.

She only hears Irene scoff as Irene rolls her eyes indifferently,

Irene then says, “Go to him.”

SeulGi doesn’t move. Not even with Henry’s tenth time calling for her name.

SeulGi continues to keep her gazes with Irene.

Oh, how suddenly hard it was.

SeulGi feels her hands and voice tremble when she finally says, “I won’t go.”

“Don’t fight it.” Irene ridicules, “I know how badly you want to go running towards his open arms.”

SeulGi feels the gnawing at her insides.

How can Irene just blurt these things out?

“Go on.” Irene carelessly motions for her to get going.

“I won’t.” SeulGi repeats firmly, “I won’t go until you’re with me.”

It momentarily shuts Irene up. SeulGi can still make up Irene’s flustered face even in the darkness.

“Oh, please, SeulGi.” Irene scornfully hisses, “Spare me.”

“It’s true!” SeulGi almost screams in frustration, “I won’t leave you here!”

SeulGi might really shock Irene as the time goes by because Irene is not able to answer back immediately again.

After a few more seconds was Irene able to come up with one, “Didn’t you want to be with him?”

I want to be with you.

SeulGi thinks, but she says instead, “What makes you think that?

I want to be with you.

“Enough with this nonsense, Irene.” SeulGi tugs Irene’s arm – because she can’t hold Irene’s hands yet, afraid that Irene might pull it back, “Let’s go back before it gets colder and you get sick.”

SeulGi internally thanks the heavens as Irene is not pulling away.

They start walking out of the arc with SeulGi leading their way.

“SeulGi! There you are!” Henry says cheerfully, but that cheerfulness is thrown at the window when he sees Irene tagging behind, “… and Irene.”

Irene only makes a face at him, which he returns.

“Hi, Henry.” SeulGi lets go of Irene’s arm so she can reach out for the pool handles to get herself up. Henry quickly grabs her hand to help her.

Even if SeulGi knows she feels absolutely nothing for Henry, she can’t help but blush, “Uh, th-thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Henry smiles, and SeulGi feels like blushing mad once more.

But then they hear someone cough rather loudly, and it was only then that SeulGi turns around to see Irene waiting by the pool handles.

“Mind getting out of my way?” Irene says.

SeulGi immediately moves aside as Irene pulls herself up.

SeulGi attends to her by assisting her, but Irene only swats her hand away. That was when SeulGi wishes that she shouldn’t have done it, because now, it hurts her more when Irene rejects her.

“I’m going to my room.” Irene says as she starts walking without turning to either SeulGi or Henry.

“I’ll go with you.” SeulGi quickly follows behind the shorter girl, bowing apologies to Henry as she walks.

Then SeulGi feels herself bump something – someone – and it made her stop at her tracks.

“Irene, why?” She asks the brunette by the latter’s sudden stop.

And it breaks SeulGi’s poor, poor heart when Irene – enveloped by her cold demeanour once more – says to SeulGi,

“You won’t be going with me anywhere. Get your things out of my room and sleep with him.”

---

“Irene, don’t do this.” SeulGi repeatedly knocks at the shut door in front of her, her bags just lying on the ground.

No answer.

“Irene.” SeulGi tries once more, “Come on. Let me in.”

Still, Irene doesn’t answer.

SeulGi scratches her head in irritation and in annoyance and in disappointment and in other unexplainable feelings imposed on her by Irene again.

How can an intimate moment go to a silly, heart-wrenching one the next second?

They’re not even a married couple to be doing stupid things as such!

“Irene!” SeulGi calls to her once more, “Don’t be like this!”

“Like ‘what’?!” SeulGi faintly hears Irene talking at the opposite end of the closed door.

“Like this!” SeulGi motions with her hands, like Irene will be able to see it.

“Like ‘what’, SeulGi? Like the that I am? Huh?”

SeulGi scoffs at the argument Irene is initiating right now, “I didn’t even say that! I’m just telling you to stop acting like this and let me in!”

“What for?!” Irene yells from the other part, “So you could talk about how you’re swooned by my oh-so-great of a cousin? Huh, SeulGi?”

“No!!!” SeulGi groans. What a useless quarrel once more.

SeulGi tortures her mind by thinking of how to convince Irene that she doesn’t even like Henry that way without actually telling Irene that she likes the older girl that way.

She is only able to rest her forehead by the wooden door as she closes her eyes. SeulGi’s tired physically, mentally, and emotionally, she lost all will to care anymore.

“I…” SeulGi says weakly, “You’re more important than him, Irene.”

SeulGi says it softly for Irene to even hear it. So imagine her surprise when she hears the clinking of the door being unlocked.

She stands up properly – bewildered and clearly disoriented – and sees Irene slowly peeking out of the door.

Did she hear me?

Yes. Apparently Irene did.

Because then Irene says, “Do you mean that?”

SeulGi was about to ask ‘what’, to play it dumb so she will get rid of the butterflies in her stomach, but she wasn’t able to.

Not when Irene looks at her so fondly.

“Of-Of course, Irene.” SeulGi stammers, she stammers more when Irene shyly looks down, “Wh-Why would you even think Henry would equal to you?”

She sees Irene clutch the door tighter as the brunette asks, “Isn’t it obvious that you like him?”

As much as SeulGi wants to see this embarrassed and adorable and childish side of Irene, she can’t help but giggle, “Irene! I like him because he’s your cousin!”

Irene looks up at her, eyebrows meeting in confusion already, “Exactly!!”

SeulGi continues to softly laugh, “Yes! Exactly! I like him because he’s your relative!

SeulGi fully opens the door to see Irene,

“And I want your relatives to like me, too.

She smiles at Irene, who was blushing red,

“Remember?”

---

“Don’t smooth talk your way in, Kang.” Irene pushes SeulGi lightly out of the room again.

“Oh come on, Irene.” SeulGi whines, she jokes, “I thought that would work on you!”

“Go search for another room for you to stay in for the night.” Irene manages to fully push SeulGi outside.

“Are you serious?”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

SeulGi stares, like her stares can knock some sanity in Irene, “You’re kidding, right. I’m in soaking clothes standing outside in a very cold night. Don’t you have a heart?”

“And you are a jerk for never listening to any of what I’m saying, and yes. I don’t have the heart for you.” Irene smiles.

But even if it was supposed to be a joke – a tease – SeulGi can’t help but feel the littlest pain when she heard Irene say the last sentence.

SeulGi’s mood unintentionally drops down as she slowly nods, she says weakly, “… Fine.”

And SeulGi’s mood shots straight up the moment she feels familiar, soft hands – the ones that she’s yearning for – pull her back.

She hears Irene say softly, “Hey, I was just joking. Why are you like this?”

SeulGi was made to turn and face the older girl, a small smile already forming on the blonde’s lips, “Why are you so confusing?”

And that same small smile keeps on getting wider and wider without her consent because Irene just has to say with a smile of her own,

“Because you confuse me a whole lot more.”

---

“Why do you stare at me like that?” Irene says – arms and legs crossed – across SeulGi.

“Like what?” SeulGi continues with her obvious gawking.

“Like a creep.”

SeulGi only chuckles as she decides to look down as she folds her clothes, “Because you look creepy.”

“You’re creepy.” Irene answers back childishly.

“If that’s what you say, Irene.” SeulGi shrugs as she purposely irritates Irene by openly staring at the latter again.

Irene only tilts her head to show how unfazed she is, “You know, SeulGi,”

SeulGi imitates Irene’s action, “What?”

“If you keep on staring at me for too long,” Irene leans closer – a devious grin plastered on that beautifully damned face, and SeulGi resists the urge to put a hand on her pounding heart when Irene continues to say,

“You might fall in love with me.”

---

SeulGi is not able to look at Irene anymore after that.

Not even when they prepared to go to sleep, not even when they were basically alone in the resort’s room and they had no one else to talk to but each other, not even when SeulGi decided to just sleep it off.

Not even when SeulGi woke up a few minutes just to feel Irene beside her again.

“W-What are you doing?” SeulGi says, her back still turned against the form beside her.

“The bed is too big.” Irene replies. SeulGi can feel the shorter girl settle herself comfortably in SeulGi’s bed, even as going as far as taking half of the fully wrapped blanket off SeulGi.

It finally made SeulGi turn to face Irene, and it might just be one of her worst decisions again because she finds Irene’s face meeting hers in a very close distance.

So close that Irene’s eyelashes are already touching hers, so close that Irene’s eyes can pierce through SeulGi’s and deeper into the latter’s soul, so close that SeulGi’s not sure whose breath was hitting , so close that her lips can seal Irene’s if she wanted to.

So very close that SeulGi doesn’t know whose heartbeat’s who. Whose heartbeat was racing faster than the other, whose heart was skipping mad beats, whose heart was about to explode.

SeulGi is not able to say anything. She is speechless.

She can’t help but find herself doing the thing she was avoiding to do the whole time – stare at Irene.

How can you not if she was this close?

SeulGi stares, and stares, and hopes.

Hopes that Irene will not see through her, hopes that Irene will not be able to realize what SeulGi has realized earlier that night when they were hugging by the pool.

But SeulGi hopes the most that her poor, poor heart stays silent and still, because Irene says, “I told you not to stare too long,”

SeulGi shudders when Irene’s breath hits her lips, wishing that it wasn’t only the air that Irene exhaled that she tasted.

“I’m warning you, SeulGi,” A smile breaks out from Irene, “You might really fall in love with me.”

A hitched breath escapes SeulGi’s lips, her muscles contracting by Irene’s words.

SeulGi hears her own heart pumping blood and pumping all those unspeakable feelings. She only manages to scoff, to at least hide what she truly feels for Irene, “Y-You wish.”

I wish.

SeulGi only hears Irene giggle softly, and SeulGi can only hear her heart breaking a bit because Irene finally pulls away to turn to the other side.

SeulGi was about to sigh, but that sigh turned into a smile when she also hears Irene command – demand, as Irene moves her back closer to SeulGi,

“Keep me warm, bear.”

And so SeulGi smiles wider, because she has an excuse to feel Irene against her again.

---

SeulGi doesn’t pull away the very next morning when she opens her eyes and realizes who she’s currently cuddled with.

Cuddled with.

She doesn’t latch herself off the figure giving her warmth along with the sunlight that entered the room.

She only watches the other girl peacefully sleep in her arms. She studies Irene’s features and wonder how she had fallen in love with her.

When all Irene did was to boss her around, when all Irene did was to make her life a living hell, when all Irene did was torture her with feelings and thoughts that haunt her day and night, when all Irene did was to make her feel.

When all Irene did was to quickly pull her back whenever Irene had pushed her away, when Irene makes it seem so that Irene does not want her but then makes it also seem so that she was the only one Irene needs, when all that Irene did was make her feel she’s not important to Irene but also makes her feel that she was everything Irene ever wanted.

Why do you confuse me so much?

SeulGi closes her eyes as she lets her smile stay on her lips, the smile she never wants to fade away.

Because that smile is for Irene – because Irene made her smile.

“Why are you smiling like that?”

SeulGi instantly opens her eyes when she hears the voice she had once loathed,

How could she even hate that voice?

SeulGi hasn’t replied yet when Irene adds – obvious teasing in her voice, “You creep.”

Irene playfully yet gently pushes SeulGi away as the older girl stands up and stretches.

Much to SeulGi’s disappointment that the warmth she intends to keep insulating her would at least stay a bit longer.

She stands up and fixes their bed while Irene continues to stretch.

“Hey, bear,” Irene calls to SeulGi as the brunette stretches her arms, “What do you want to do today?”

SeulGi looks up at Irene after the blonde finishes fixing the bed, “I thought we’ll watch a movie with your cousins?”

“‘We’?” Irene teasingly lifts a corner of .

SeulGi flushes red with that one word, “I-I mean, you. You will watch a movie with your cousins.”

Irene only laughs at her, and SeulGi only bows her head in embarrassment. Why did she even include herself?

“It’s alright, SeulGi!” Irene says as she starts walking to the door, “Finally feeling part of the family, huh?

“It’s okay,” Irene turns to her, and SeulGi curses herself because her heart is already running laps as she sees Irene smile at her,

“You are.”

---

A part of their family.

A part of Irene Bae’s family.

Wouldn’t SeulGi like that?

Just the thought of being able to see Irene every day gives SeulGi sudden good chills and wide smiles, what more to spend every day with her?

But SeulGi is nothing more than the servant of the family, the farthest she could get and be as part of Irene’s kin.

Then again, at least SeulGi is able to see her every day.

At least she is able to spend every day with Irene.

---

Though her thoughts of being a part of Irene’s family disappears the moment they entered the Bae’s residence because Irene’s cousins start rounding up the living room again to d