It would have been a perfect first date but it isn't, for Seulgi that is. Mostly because of the nagging thought at the back of her head and that Wendy standee following her around, rubbing it in her face that Wendy is waiting for her back at home with questions she's too scared to answer.

So when she finally walks Irene home, she feels so relieved to see that Wendy isn't around and that her life is spared for yet another day. She stands at the door, lingers because it looks like Irene doesn't want her to go and to be honest, she doesn't want to either.

"Seulgi-yah," Irene says, thumbs twiddling again. "I really had fun today."

"I did too. Thanks for asking me out." Irene looks at her as if she's waiting for her to say something else. 

"So, uh, when can we..." She scrunches her nose, hesitates. She'll sound so desperate if she initiates the second date! She already asked Seulgi out on the first. 

"Are you free next weekend?" Seulgi asks and she's saved. "I was just thinking that... today really went well and we should do it again. I mean, if you want to." Seulgi gives her a smile and she's not really sure what pushed her to do it but she stands on the tip of her toes and kisses the other girl on the cheek.

She blushes hard and has to say her good night very quick and runs inside the house because she's too embarrassed.

"G-good night." 

Irene hears Seulgi say from the other side of the door and she suddenly feels good about herself, feels proud of herself. She kissed her and she doesn't regret anything. Okay, maybe she regrets running inside the house like a coward but how was she supposed to act? She was caught off guard. But today is really a good day and she thinks, no, she believes that nothing can ruin it for her.

--

Seulgi's too occupied with her thoughts that she fails to notice that her friends are waiting for her in the living room when she walks in. She doesn't acknowledge their presence until Soojung's palm collides with her left cheek.

"Ah! What the ?"

"Yah, Kang Seulgi. Watch your mouth." Her mom warns.

Seulgi looks around the room, takes in the sight of Soojung standing in front of her, Sulli looking expectantly at her from the couch, and her mom hobbling forward on her crutches, dragging a suitcase behind her.

"Oh. Mom, are you going somewhere?"

"Eo. Your uncle's picking me up. I'm staying with him and your cousins for a few days. That's why I called your friends over to keep you company while I'm gone. Be nice to them, okay? And I better not hear you cursing like that again." Seulgi pouts at her.

"Be good. I'm going!" She hugs her and before Seulgi knows it, she's out the door.

"Sooo," Soojung starts. "How was your date?" Seulgi lets herself be dragged by Soojung to the couch. She's pushed down to sit between her two friends and she ponders on what words to use. She's not really sure about anything.

"It went really well." Seulgi says, looking a little blank.

"Did it?" Sulli asks.

"The first part was." Seulgi confesses, shoulders slouching.

"Why? Why? What happened?" Soojung asks.

"I keep on seeing this Wendy standee every where! It was following me!"

"Following you? What? A Wendy standee?" Soojung asks, not sure if she heard her right.

"Yeah, you know, those cardboard things. Like the one Sulli has." Seulgi says. Sulli swallows, busies herself with her phone.

"I see. Well, why did that standee bother you?"

"It was creeping me out! And I... I couldn't... I couldn't focus on Irene unnie because... I feel guilty for rejecting Wendy and for not giving her an explanation why I turned her down. She's my friend and she probably really wanted to talk and catch up and... and I agreed to go out on a date with Irene unnie instead of meeting her." Soojung nods, pats Seulgi's knee.

"And you can't really do anything else because you don't want to hurt Irene's feelings, right?" Sulli says.

"Y-yeah."

"But don't you like Irene? I mean, Wendy's your friend. I'm sure she'll understand if you tell her that you like Irene." Seulgi doesn't say anything else, can't say what's really bothering her.

"I should probably talk to Seungwan, right? Make it up to her. But I'm scared." She finishes with a sigh.

"Of what?" 

"Scared that she won't forgive me." Seulgi pouts.

"I have an idea." Soojung says. Both Seulgi and Sulli look at her. "How about this? Let's all have a movie marathon tonight and order pizza like we always do, huh?"

"And forget about our problems?" Seulgi asks. Soojung nods, pushes her off the couch.

"Go get changed. Ssul and I will take care of the food." Seulgi smiles, thinks she's lucky to have friends like Soojung and Sulli. 

She makes her way to her bedroom and closes the door behind her but her joy about having her friends is short lived when she sees her standing outside her window, much like the standee that has been haunting her the whole day but this time, it's really her. 

She doesn't move, can't move and just makes eye contact with her. It infuriates the other girl and she pulls the window open.

"Yah, Kang Seulgi!" Wendy sticks her head in the gap of the open window, crawls her way in and Seulgi panics, runs toward her and tries to pull the window down and pushes Wendy out at the same time, completely unaware that doing so might hurt her. 

"Yah!"

"Don't come in! Stay outside!" She says, pushes with all her strength but somehow Wendy has grabbed a hold onto her wrist.

"Yah! That hurts! Yah! Ouch!" Wendy yells.

"It does?" Seulgi stops and does the opposite of what she was doing moments ago as she pulls her in, throwing all of her weight on her back so that Wendy is completely pulled inside her bedroom.

The force of the pull has Wendy stumbling and falling on top of Seulgi. She throws a glare at her before sitting up to straddle her hips and to choke the life out of her.

"I'm going to kill you!"

"Mommy!" Seulgi wails, tries to pry Wendy's fingers off .

"Do you hate me that much to try and push me out the window?" She's borderline crazy. 

"You're breaking and entering! Ow! Can't... breathe." Seulgi says in her defense but only ends up aggravating the girl even more.

"You!"

"I'm sorry!" Seulgi yells out her last breath and Wendy finally lets go but doesn't get off her. 

They stay in that position with Seulgi at the bottom, looking up at Wendy, eyes full of guilt. Wendy just frowns at her.

"Sorry for what? For pushing me out the window or for not telling me the truth?" Wendy leans close to Seulgi so that she's hovering over her, using her hands to support herself.

"Both." Seulgi says, dares to look her straight in the eye, their faces mere inches apart.

"I don't get it, Seulgi. Why didn't you just tell me?"  Her voice drops to a whisper but Seulgi is starting to feel uncomfortable so she raises hers.

"Because I was afraid that you're going to react this way!"

"React this way?" Wendy's forehead crinkles and Seulgi knows she's touched a nerve.

"Yes! You're being scary and unfair!"

"How am I unfair? We haven't seen each other for fifteen years and you pick Irene unnie to go on a date with whom you've only known for two weeks!"

"I didn't pick her. She asked me out first! I can't just cancel on her!"

"Oh, yeah? For all I know, you like her!" 

Wendy scoffs.

"So what if I do? Can't I like the pretty girl next door who's been nothing but kind to me the whole time I've been working for them while my childhood friend was terrorizing me?" Seulgi shouts back.

"Oh, so it's my fault? Kang, you-" The door to Seulgi's bedroom creaks open and the two of them turn their gazes towards it - Seulgi seeing upside down.

"I don't mean to interrupt but, Seulgi, the pizza's here. I-it can wait, of course. You guys just go ahead and have an angry makeout session or whatever."  Soojung says, biting back a laugh.

A few seconds pass wherein all three of them just stare at each other, as if they're waiting for Soojung's words to make sense.

Angry makeout session?

Wendy gets off Seulgi and covers her blushing face while Seulgi flat out denies Soojung's claims of her and Wendy making out.

"Yeah, sure. Just come out to eat when you're done." Soojung says, winks at her. 

Jung Soojung, you're dead.

--

Seulgi and Wendy didn't get the chance to continue their talk until much later - when all of the food was gone and when Seulgi's friends are fast asleep on the carpet. The credits of the last movie they watched is still rolling but neither one of them feels the need to get up and turn the television off so they let it be.

"I was wrong. I'm sorry." Wendy turns her head to look at Seulgi, sees that she's looking right back at her. "I should have told you that I couldn't go with you because I was going out with Irene unnie."

"But why didn't you?" She asks, prepares herself for the worst but hopes for the best.

"Anything that I will say right now is just going to sound like an excuse." Seulgi mumbles.

"Then let's hear it. Let me hear your excuse." 

"I... didn't want to hurt your feelings. I didn't want you to think that I was choosing someone else over you." Seulgi's frowning at her hands now, too ashamed to look at Wendy. 

Wendy tries not to get all hopeful from hearing Seulgi's words but she said she doesn't want to hurt her feelings and that can only mean that she still cares about her after all these years.

"You do realize that not telling me has hurt my feelings too, right?" She says, keeping her voice neutral. Not happy, not mad.

"Yes, I do and I'm sorry." Silence falls and they both bask in it.

"And I'm sorry for reacting the way I did." Wendy speaks up and Seulgi finally looks up. "Let's just..."

"Put it behind us?" Seulgi finishes her sentence for her and she nods. "Let me make it up to you though. There's a lot of hanging out with each other that we missed. Fifteen years worth."

"Hmm, that's true. How about next weekend?" Wendy nearly jumps up in excitement. There's a hopeful, happy glint in her eyes that it breaks Seulgi's heart to have to say it.

"I can't next weekend." Seulgi's frowning again, shoulders slouching forward.

"Why not?" She raises an eyebrow at her, pouts.

"We're... going on our second date."

The pout slides off Wendy's lips. She has to bite it to keep it from trembling. She shakes her head once as if trying to shake her feelings off and manages a smile.

"We'll try some other time then. I'll call you, okay?" She gets up from the couch, takes long strides, heads for the door.

Seulgi hears the inevitable slam of the door and thinks that maybe she should go after Wendy but she's too ashamed of herself for hurting the girl twice in one day. She shouldn't be allowed to be anywhere near her. Now she knows why she's been feeling guilty all day. She's doing the thing she has sworn to never do fifteen years ago - she's hurting Seungwan. 

-----------------------

A/N: I'm really sorry, Wendy. *curls up into a ball and cries in a corner* So, yes. I hate to do this but we're gonna have angst for the next chapters. It's for the build up and . I'm... huhuhu. Sorry.

But hey, thanks for reading still. Thanks to both the old and new subscribers! To the upvoters (Keamai, SNSD4Life_, vineyard, KkabYUL267,  candyksjb), thank you! 

I've written a lot of chapters in advance over the past few days and let me say this again, please don't get mad if your ship isn't canon. I hope you still appreaciate the story regardless of the end pairing. So, that's that. Thanks again for reading! Hope you enjoyed this chapter.

- Bluekimchi