Irene is up as early as 8AM the next day, prepped for a schedule with the company van waiting for her. She glances at the house next door, hoping that a certain girl will make an appearance before she leaves. She thinks she should join the Hunger Games because the odds are in her favor as Seulgi bursts out the front door, sporting the fanciest bed hair Irene has ever seen and clad in sweatpants and an oversized shirt and she looks so good in it.

"H-Hi, Seulgi!" Seulgi looks up and blinks at her.

"Oh, Irene unnie. Good morning."

"Yeah, I just wanted to know if you were okay. That you didn't get in trouble with your mom for coming home late." Irene starts, looking over her shoulder as the manager honks the horn to call her attention.

"Oh, no. I didn't. My mom's cool with things like that as long as she finds me in my bed in the morning. Are you going somewhere?" Seulgi asks, taking notice of the van on the driveway.

"Yeah, I have a schedule. I gotta go now. See you later, Seulgi." Irene smiles, waves, and runs to the van. 

Seulgi watches her go while she stands by the fence, wondering how she managed to become friends with somone so pretty that it's unreal. She thinks today would be a good day.

However, she finds Wendy glaring at her across the lawn when she looks up. She cowers when the girl marches over to her, swallows when she's right in front of her.

"What time will you be coming to work?"

"Uh, I... the usual time, I guess."

"Good. Don't be late." Wendy scrunches her nose, eyebrows knotting together. Seulgi swallows hard. She takes it back. It won't be a good day.

--

Cruuuuuunch.

Joy bites down loudly on a chip as she sits on the kitchen table, not bothering to hide her smile. The sudden turn of events has her glued to her seat with much amusement and it isn't even lunch time yet.

"Watch it!" Wendy half yells, half says to Seulgi who was trying to mix the dough as best as she can. "You're spilling it everywhere!"

Seulgi looks at Wendy in disbelief because apparently 'everywhere' to Wendy meant a small trail dripping down the side of the mixing bowl.

"I told you I can't do it. Why did you ask for my help anyway?" Seulgi replies, eyebrows knotting, thinking about all the other things she has to do.

"Because you're being paid to help us. Now stop talking and start baking." Wendy says in a cold tone. 

Joy laughs inwardly. Finally, someone else has the same sentiments as her when it comes to Seulgi. Somebody else is being mean to Seulgi. And she likes it. 

"Fine. I'm sorry." Seulgi mumbles, getting right back to the task at hand.

Wendy stares at her for a good minute, expression softening a little at the sight of Seulgi so... so helpless. She wonders if she can keep this up but she sees Joy giving her a questioning look and she knows she can.

"Didn't you tell me that you had other things to do? So hurry up with that dough." Wendy says, moving around the kitchen. "And don't forget to wash all of these when we're done."

By the end of the day, Seulgi is convinced that she's working for Satan because not only did Wendy keep her busy with petty things - like making her clean her room twice because she said she was not satisfied with how clean it is the first time and giving her extremely dirty clothes to wash, Joy has also joined in on the torture by making sure that she leaves a huge mess for her to clean. She's pretty much crawling on her way home, to tired to even walk.

She falls face first on her bed and groans so loud that her mom walks in her room to check up on her.

"Dear, what's wrong?"

"Too tired to talk, Umma." Seulgi turns her head to the side so she can look at her mother. "Why did you have to break your leg?"

"Those girls giving you a hard time?"

"Something like that. Not all of them though. One is being nice to me." Seulgi replies.

"Just hang in there for a little bit longer. We'll see if we can get someone else to do housekeeping for them, eo?"

"It's okay, mom. I'd rather they do this to me than to you." Seulgi says. Her mom can't help but smile at her daughter's thoughtfulness.

"Sleep. Tomorrow will be better. I love you, my Seulgi." She walks to her daughter's bed and drapes the blanket over her. She kisses her on the forehead and smiles.

"Love you too." Seulgi yawns and falls asleep almost instantly.

--

"Get out! I said get out!"

Wendy's voice rings out in the entire house. Irene who is busy ironing her clothes in her bedroom, runs to the kitchen to check what's going on. She bumps into Joy in the living room. She's apparently in a hurry to get to the kitchen as well. They walk in on the kitchen just in time to see Seulgi walk out the back door with her head down. Wendy is standing in the middle of the kitchen, looking down on pieces of broken ceramic on the floor.

Silence hovers over the room. Joy takes slow steps towards Wendy when she bends down to pick up the pieces of her once favorite mug from the floor. Irene notices the drops of red on the floorboards and she knows it's not Wendy's blood. 

Irene follows Seulgi out the door even if it means that Joy will accuse her of siding with the enemy. She sees Seulgi standing with her back to the wall, clutching her finger and holding in her tears. She looks so cute with her lower lip jutting to a pout and her eyes locked on her index finger as if she's willing the blood to clot just by looking at it. Irene sighs, approaches her and pulls at her other hand. Seulgi blinks, smiles up at Irene and it breaks her heart because how can she do that when she's in pain right now?

"Let's get that cleaned up, shall we?" She says with a gentle voice. Seulgi nods.

Within ten minutes, Seulgi's injured finger is washed, applied with ointment and covered with a bear printed band-aid. She still hasn't said anything yet and it scares Irene.

"Are you okay?" Irene asks, noticing how very quiet Seulgi has become.

"I should probably apologize to Wendy. I-It was an accident." She made to stand up but Irene holds her down to sit back on the couch.

"It's okay, Seulgi. It's better not to rush things like this with Wendy. Trust me."

"But I don't want to give her another reason to hate me." The girl whispers, slouching.

"Hate you? She doesn't hate you." Irene exclaims, unconsciously grasping Seulgi by the arm, wanting to get her point across.

"What makes you say that she doesn't? She seems to be always annoyed when she talks to me." Seulgi replies, eyebrows furrowing.

Irene pauses, thinks for a bit before speaking.

"I don't think she is. Wendy is one of the nicest people I have ever met. She's never mad at anyone for too long. It'll pass. Seungwan's the nicest of us all, I promise." Irene swears.

"Seungwan?" Seulgi repeats.

"Ah, that's Wendy's Korean name."

Seulgi ponders hard about the name. It rings a bell, an old and dusty bell in the recesses of her mind that she hasn't visited for the longest time.

"Seulgi? What's wrong?"

"I just... I just know someone by that name."

"Son Seungwan?"

"Seungwan. But I don't think the last name is Son. I think it's Lee."

"Oh." Irene says, noticing Wendy lingering by the stairs, an unreadable expression on her face.

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

A/N: Hello again! We're over 300 subscribers! Yay! Thank you everyone for your support. Thanks to dolphenger, Taetaeboo, guesswhoiam, punkinpumpkin, Kriziiiiie for upvoting!

This update is kinda short, I know. But I promise to have the next chapter up as soon as possible. Please bear with me.

And can I say that out of everybody here, I'm having the hardest time in choosing between Seulrene and Seuldy? Because, , I just don't know who to ship between Seuldy, Seulrene, and Wenrene. But that's just me. Please don't be sad if I don't end up choosing your ship. 

I'd love to hear your thoughts though. Please comment if you can! Thank you again! - Bluekimchi