It’s hard for Irene not to stare. Firstly, the girl doing one-armed push ups next to her is absolutely gorgeous. Secondly, she’s been doing push ups for a very long time and she still hasn’t stopped. Irene’s only done 7.5 sit ups. She looks at the clock. She realises she’s been here for nearly an hour, and has only done 7.5 sit ups. Tearing her gaze away from the attractive stranger doing one-armed push ups, she returns to torturing her abdominal muscles.

    0.5 sit ups later (that’s a total of 8 now) Irene stops and starts to stare again. This time the stranger is staring back.
“I take it you didn’t get a good enough look the first time?” the stranger asks with a mischievous grin.
Irene gapes. opens and closes as she tries to find the right words. She’s panicking.
“I-I-I—I wasn’t staring,” she stammers.
The stranger laughs, “are you sure? Because that’s all you were doing.”

    Irene gapes.

    Laughing again, the stranger sits up and faces Irene (who is still gaping), “any particular reason why you were staring?”
“I—you—you were doing one-armed push ups for a really really long time,” Irene blurts.

“Well I like to think of them as just push ups, because I’ve only got one arm,” she says with the same mischievous grin as before, lifting up a stump Irene didn’t notice before.

    Irene gapes.

    The girl grins again.
“I—I’m sorry I didn’t—oh my god I’m sorry,” Irene stutters.
“Why are you sorry? It’s not like I only have one arm because of you,” the girl laughs.
Irene blushes, “well yeah but—I—I—um—I”
“Aw damn I need to go now, maybe I’ll see you around, cutie,” the girl winks, grabbing her things and heading to the change rooms.

    Irene gapes.

    It’s not until she finally reaches home that Irene’s brain starts to function properly. Unfortunately, there is no time for her to process anything that happened at the gym because she is met by a slightly irritated Joy, who opens the door to their apartment before she can get her keys out.
“Well it looks like you're finally back,” Joy spits.
“Yes…?” Irene is confused.
Joy rolls her eyes, “do you know what day it is?”
“Um…Thursday?” Irene is very confused.
“Yes. It’s Thursday, which means it was your shift but guess who had to cover for you because you never showed up?” Joy begins to raise her voice.
“I—I was—there was—I—” Irene blubbers. Irene doesn’t like people yelling at her, and even though this is Joy, someone younger than her and, according to tradition, shouldn’t really be yelling her, Irene bursts into tears.
Joy panics, “oh no I’m sorry unnie please I’m so sorry why are you crying—why are you crying? Is it because I yelled? I’m sorry I yelled please stop crying I’m bad with feelings oh no I’m so sorry.”
Irene keeps crying, she’s confused. Joy yelled at her, and she doesn’t know why she’s crying, so she just cries because she’s confused.

    “You were late because late because you were too busy staring at someone hot??” Joy repeats in exasperation. Irene’s moist, red eyes make her regret raising her voice. Irene nods.
“I’m—I—what?” now Joy is confused.
“She was super hot and pretty and she called me a cutie oh my god,” Irene can feel herself getting emotional again and she runs her fingers through her hair in frustration. Joy hands her another tissue.
“I think I’m just going to let you handle this yourself,” Joy shakes her head and returns to her room.
“Joy,” Irene whispers, “h..e…l…p.. m…e..”
But it’s too bad, because Joy can’t hear her.

    For the first time in her life, Irene is actually trying to look good at the gym. All of a sudden, none of her clothes match and a fabric pile begins to grow at the foot of her bed. She can’t wear the black tank top, because that’s what she was wearing when she saw the super hot stranger, and the blue one doesn’t really suit her. Maybe the red tank top? Nah. Eventually she decides on a black crop top, because she doesn’t really want to draw too much attention (but she doesn’t want to just be part of the crowd, you know?). When she walks into the gym, she sees the same attractive stranger, doing the same, attractive one-armed push ups again. Irene sits down next to her, and just sits, because she’s not sure what she’s supposed to do now. After some time, attractive-one-armed-stranger stops doing push ups and notices that Irene is beside her.
“Oh hey! You’re staring, again,” she grins, not before running her eyes over Irene’s appearance and biting her lip.
Irene notices this and screams, “YES!”
In her head, of course. She doesn’t want to embarrass herself.
“Uh..hi?” Irene smiles. She thinks. She’s not quite sure if she looked like she was smiling or if it just looked like she was in pain.
“So, are you here to check me out, or to actually work out?” attractive-one-armed-stranger asks, sitting up to face Irene.
“I’m sorry, but it seemed to me that you were the one doing the checking out a second ago, I am wrong?” Irene smirks.
Attractive-one-armed-stranger is lost for words, “I—I—I was just—you look really good though!”
Irene squeals (out loud this time) and clamps a hand over .
Attractive-one-armed-stranger gapes, “did you just…squeal?”
“Yes—no! I mean maybe—no!” Irene buries her face in her hands.
Attractive-one-armed-stranger grins, “cutie.”

    Once Irene gets over herself and finds the courage to look her in the eye, attractive-one-armed-stranger asks, “so is it too late for introductions now?”
It turns out that attractive-one-armed-stranger isn’t, in fact, called ‘attractive-one-armed-stranger’, but goes by the name Kang Seulgi.
“So Irene, do you have any other hobbies besides coming into the gym and staring at hot people?” Seulgi asks, with the same grin Irene has already gotten used to.
“Are you saying that you’re ‘hot people’?”
“Yes, I am.”
“You’re shameless,” Irene scoffs.
“Says the one who spent almost an hour staring at me on two different occasions without even bothering to be inconspicuous about it.”
“Hey! In my defence, you’re super hot and—goddammit I said that out loud didn’t I,” Irene sighs.
Seulgi tries to hide a smile (she fails), “yes, yes you did.”

    One completely unproductive gym session later, Irene and Seulgi enter the change rooms, where Irene finds out that Seulgi has less she than she had thought, taking off her jumper almost immediately after entering the change rooms. Irene stares. And stares and stares and stares and stares. Kang Seulgi’s abs could save the world. Irene swallows the lump in , and stares more.
Her staring is put to a temporary end when Seulgi calls her, “Hey Irene?”
“Y-yeah?”
“Could you uh, lend me a hand?” Seulgi says, stifling a laugh.
“Did you just—was that a—oh my god that was horrible.”
Seulgi laughs, she laughs so hard that Irene can she her abs tensing and she stares again.
And stares and stares and stares and stares and stares.
Kang Seulgi’s abs could save the world.

    As it turns out, Seulgi lives in the apartment complex just opposite Irene and Joy’s. More coincidentally, if Irene was too look out of her bedroom window, she would be able to see into Seulgi’s bedroom.
N i c e .

    Of course, Irene simply can’t resist the temptation of Seulgi’s abs of salvation, so she sneaks a glance one day, while she’s taking a break from her assignment. Her timing is impeccable, and she manages to catch Seulgi as she exits the shower. She gapes. This is way more that she asked for. She discovers that Seulgi is a minimalist when it comes to clothing at home, and she leaves the shower with nothing but a towel. ‘Nothing but a towel’ in this case, refers to the fact that Seulgi leaves the shower without anything else but a towel, with said towel in her hand, drying her hair. Irene stares. And stares and stares and stares and stares. Seulgi stretches and Irene nearly explodes. Seulgi turns around and Irene has front row seats to a premiere of Seulgi’s of salvation. Hot damn. 

    Irene stares. And stares and stares and stares and stares. She nearly screams when Seulgi turns around and looks right at her. ‘Nearly’, because she is about to when she realises that Seulgi is pointing finger-guns at her and does the most dorky, unattractive wink Irene has ever seen in her life. Nonetheless, she is embarrassed and immediately shuts her curtains.

    It’s late at night, and Joy is out with some friends who Irene finds questionable, but it’s none of her business. Someone knocks. She groans. She had just settled into her bed and was ready to marathon Spongebob, but now she can’t because of the person outside. She trudges out of her bed, and rolls her eyes when the person keeps knocking. When she opens the door and sees Seulgi, she nearly slams the door again.
“W-w-why?” Irene stutters.
Seulgi tilts her head, “I hardly think it’s fair that you’ve been able to see so much of me when I’m haven’t even been able to see your blushing face.”
Irene swallows, “what are you suggesting?”
“What do you think?” Seulgi grins.
“Do you…want to see my baby photos?”

    It’s 3:30 in the morning and Seulgi and Irene are huddled next to each other on Irene’s bed, looking at Irene’s baby photos.
“This probably wasn’t what you had in mind, was it?” Irene asks as she flicks through the photos.
Seulgi shakes her head, “honestly, no, but it’ll do.”
“I could…I could kiss you? I mean, if you want me to,” Irene suggests cautiously, attempting to sound casual but sounding more nervous than anything.
Seulgi looks at her in surprise before smiling shyly, “that’d be nice.”
Irene leans in, her hand reaching out to touch Seulgi’s but she forgets that Seulgi only has one arm and ends up feeling the mattress underneath, trying to find her hand. Seulgi notices and bursts into laughter.
“Cutie,” she whispers against Irene’s lips. Her hand reaches for Irene’s and when they touch, the space between them closes and Irene’s other hand slides up Seulgi’s shirt, running cold fingers over smooth skin. 

    She’s done it. 

    She’s touched the abs of salvation. 

    Nothing matters anymore.

    Well nothing other than the fact that Seulgi is a good kisser. A really good kisser.

    Irene feels her head hitting the pillow. Seulgi’s hand is now in her hair and her shirt isn’t on her anymore and Irene stares. Not for long, though, because Seulgi kisses her again and Irene can’t even remember her name anymore. Hot damn.

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i was listening to music and then miss a's hush came on so that may explain the random ing
does this even make any sense omfg what am i doing
red velvet gives me life
I SHOULD GET AROUND TO WRITING MY OTHER FICS GDI
ty 4 reading much love ♡