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Seulgi’s surprised exhale breaks the silence. Her eyes widen, taking in the melodramatic hues of Jaeyi’s room. The cool blues of the expanse wash over her, and though it’s her first time stepping foot in it, it feels oddly familiar.
“Do you like it?” Jaeyi’s lips rise into a small smirk, drinking in Seulgi’s wide-eyed reaction with amusement. She casually loosens her tie, sheds parts of her uniform, gestures vaguely to the sharks on the wall with her other hand. As she undresses, Seulgi darts her eyes away, pretending to be immersed in examining the room. It’s not hard to pretend.
“Mm,” Seulgi hums with genuine admiration for the deep blue decor. “I like it.”
“It reminds me of the feeling I had when I first went diving,” Jaeyi says, unprompted, and Seulgi looks up at her. The shorter girl’s breath catches at the unfamiliar emotion in Jaeyi’s eyes. “It might sound strange”-- she half scoffs, half laughs, as if to not take her own words too seriously– “but the feeling of being deep underwater… it’s comforting. You know?”
Seulgi nods emphatically, surprised but grateful for the unexpected direction the conversation was going. “I understand. Like the entire world is muffled, and for once you can finally take a deep breath.” She stops herself after that, feeling her cheeks flush. Seulgi, too out of pocket, she warns herself.
But Jaeyi’s looking up at her now, too, with something hungry in her expression that makes Seulgi feel self-conscious in a different way. “Exactly like that,” she murmurs. “The water pressure replaces the pressure of the world, and instead of being crushed– you feel free.”
Seulgi still isn’t entirely trusting of Jaeyi, as much as the back of her brain– the part that she’s repeatedly turned off and repressed throughout the years– wants to be. While the girl has shown her nothing but kindness, she can’t shake the voice that probes, wonders: why?
In the dog-eat-dog world Seulgi has grown up in, she has never experienced a kindness that wasn’t conditional. But in the present moment, all she can focus on is how her heart feels caught in her throat. She can’t help but stare back into Jaeyi’s eyes, thinking that this is the closest she’s felt to understanding, and being understood, by someone else in a long, long time.
“Ah, enough talk. Come here,” Jaeyi ushers her closer to the bed. “Change into these,” she says, with an easy smile– the same smile that makes something ache deep in Seulgi’s chest– and hands her a pair of clean, neatly folded pajamas. They feel like smooth silk to the touch. “The bathroom’s over there. Help yourself to whatever’s in it.”
“Thank you.” The words tumble out of her mouth, more from habit than conscious thought. Seulgi hurriedly holds the bundle close to her chest and turns away, trying to shut down the feeling in her heart. She wonders, does Jaeyi know? How these actions, which she does as easily as breathing, feel like miniature supernovas imploding in the scale of Seulgi’s world?
Don’t get ahead of yourself, the voice in her mind cautions again. She doesn’t like you. It’s nothing to her. And it should be nothing to you.
But it doesn’t stop her from tucking her chin into the collar of the nightshirt after changing into it, and taking in a deep breath. Jaeyi’s scent, if mild, still lingers. Seulgi’s shoulders relax just a miniscule amount before she picks them back up again– since when did she associate another person with comfort? It was dangerous behavior to think like that.
Don’t let yourself get too close, because they’ll always leave in the end.
But hadn’t Jaeyi promised otherwise? She’d promised she’d stay–
Seulgi whirls away from where she stood in front of the mirror, shaking her head. Curse Yoo Jaeyi. Curse these thoughts.
When she exits the bathroom, Seulgi is surprised to find Jaeyi already in bed, leaning against the headboard. Her hair is down in loose waves, and her face, usually sculpted and composed with care, has slipped to something that might resemble neutrality in a normal person, but might as well be serenity in Jaeyi.
Not for the first time, and not willingly, either, Seulgi fights down a strange hitch in her breath.
Jaeyi, sharp as ever, quickly notices her. “What are you standing there for, come over here,” she calls out, teasingly. She pats the space in the bed next where she lies.
And part of Seulgi wants to run over, burrow into the covers. Squeeze her eyes shut and think about how being in the presence of Jaeyi is as close to feeling safe as she’s felt in a long time. But that part of her can’t win, and so, as always, she hesitates, caution etched deep into her eyes.
But Jaeyi sees through it with the same consistency. “I don’t bite.” she smirks and suddenly Seulgi feels another emotion bloom into the rest of her already muddled ones.
“Isn’t it a bit early to sleep?” is what she settles on saying instead.
“No, we must get our beauty sleep in order to study well,” Jaeyi gently refutes, eyes twinkling in her unreadable way. Gentle, gentle, gentle. It makes Seulgi want to run away. She can handle pain and apathy and struggle. But how is she supposed to hold gentleness? “Besides, we don’t have to sleep right away.”
Seulgi still stands dumbly in the doorway of the bathroom, heart and head in conflict with the other.
“Don’t make me get out of bed,” Jaeyi warns, and with that, Seulgi finds herself reluctantly padding over to the bed, gingerly lowering herself onto it.
She awkwardly slips under the covers herself, half-sitting up, eyes fixated on anything that isn’t Jaeyi’s own, which are staring intensely at her.
“Relax,” Jaeyi laughs. “You’re so tense.”
“I am?” Seulgi replies, almost on default, and she wants to smack herself for it.
Boop. A finger gently taps Seulgi on the nose. Jaeyi giggles, settles herself completely flat on the bed, pulling the covers up to her chin. “You are.”
Seulgi stays half-sitting up for another few seconds before copying Jaeyi and sliding fully down, tersely on edge. At the orphanage everyone slept in their own slim, threadbare beds. Things like sleepovers might as well be a figment of a fantastical, outside world. Not to mention sleepovers in the same bed as Yoo Jaeyi. This was very new, indeed.
“Hey, Seulgi?” Jaeyi brings up. “I was reading an article earlier today, in class. Apparently we need four hugs a day for survival, and eight for growth.” She says this with great solemnity, as if reciting an important discovery, but the hints of a mischievous twinkle remain in her eyes.
Seulgi herself can’t help the scoff that makes its way out of her mouth. “For survival?” Her eyes almost boggle out of her head. “I’m still alive on an average of zero.” It’s a resolute statement. One she almost regrets as soon the words leave her mouth. Almost. She’s fallen into the trap that Jaeyi easily laid out. And part of her thinks she wanted to fall.
“Seulgi-ya,” Jaeyi gasps in mock surprise. “Now that can’t do. Shouldn’t I raise that average by at least two?”
“You of all people should know that’s not how it works.”
Jaeyi has the audacity to pout. “Well, let me change that.” Just like that, her face resumes back into her signature smirk. “Why don’t you come here, princess.”
Seulgi blushes at the nickname but her muscles stubbornly refuse to move. How part of her wishes she could throw herself into Jaeyi’s arms. But if she does, part of her mind is equally convinced it’ll mean certain death. It’ll mean giving in, and that is not something Seulgi does.
But Jaeyi is as insistent as she is patient, and kind, a side of her seemingly reserved only for Seulgi. She raises her eyebrows, wiggles a bit towards the shorter girl. One arm is raised to hold the blanket up, and give her princess space to move into the gap between.
Seulgi eyes the opening with an equal mix of longing and caution. She wants to. She won’t let herself. She doesn’t do vulnerability, let alone these gentle touches and reassurances Jaeyi is so fond of.
“Come, Seulgi-ya,” Jaeyi murmurs, one hand slowly moving forward to tuck an errant strand of hair behind Seulgi’s ear. The touch is feather-soft and searing all at once, and Seulgi feels the same ache blossom, renewed, in her chest. It takes all of her willpower not to lean into Jaeyi’s hand.
Slowly, again, as if she’s approaching an injured animal, Jaeyi tenderly moves her hand until it’s wrapped around Seulgi’s shoulder, palm flat and steady against her back. Despite her whole body tensing, Seulgi doesn’t pull away. All the while Jaeyi’s eyes look down on Seulgi with care, maybe something akin to curiosity.
“Can I?” Jaeyi asks again. Something in Seulgi cracks hearing her tone. All the dragging her around that Jaeyi usually did at school was less difficult to handle because Seulgi could just pretend she had no choice in the matter. But here Jaeyi is, clearly asking for her permission, and by this point Seulgi’s too far gone, thinking that if the universe really was just an apathetic cosmic soup of dust and ice and she’s been kicked through half of it anyways, then– then– is it really such a mistake to give into this warmth?
So she nods, almost imperceptibly, but leave it to Jaeyi to pick up on it. Jaeyi’s guiding touch against her back becomes more solid. With a steady sweep, betraying a hidden strength in her arms, she pulls Seulgi into her embrace.
The first contact is so warm. Seulgi worries of being consumed entirely by it. It’s as if every bit of the world, and every neuron in her mind, has solidified into focusing on every point of contact between them. Impossibly dense, inexplicable aching.
Never having being exposed to this kind of warmth, how would she be able to live without it again after holding it so closely? The ache that had been steadily settling itself inside her heart suddenly flares up, shooting into her nervous system, sending an uncontrollable tremor through her body. Jaeyi only continues running a soothing hand down her back, her other arm gently circling her waist and pulling her even closer. She was right. They do fit perfectly around each other.
“Is this okay?” she asks, and Seulgi blinks hard, tries to reply. A sudden flare of panic rises up– this is wrong, I can’t– but Jaeyi doesn’t let go, only holds her tighter until she relaxes into the warmth. An unknown amount of time passes, and eventually her thoughts settle down. Jaeyi is uncharacteristically quiet, not having let out a single teasing remark or joke. She just continues breathing steadily, hand rubbing comforting circles against Seulgi’s back. This continues for an indeterminate period of time, and Seulgi feels like her world has been continuously broken apart into smithereens, and patched together again, then seared together into something entirely new and wondrous. And repeat. Again, and again, until time loses meaning and only this warmth remains, solid arms wrapped around her and the smell of Jaeyi surrounding her.
Seulgi finally snuggles her face into the crook of Jaeyi’s shoulder, lets herself be held, completely melting into the touch.
Yoo Jaeyi, you’ll be the end of me, Seulgi thinks. Her brain is still undergoing some kind of rapid rewiring and feeling a pleasant nothingness all at once. She had worried letting kindness in would break her, but now she thinks that something old had to be broken in order for the greater whole to be fixed, and if not fixed completely, at least primed for something new, something better.
Unbeknownst to Seulgi, Jaeyi is thinking the same thing. This shouldn’t be part of the script. This had no gain, other than to her own personal fulfillment and the satisfaction of the strange new warmth licking and curling around her long dormant heart. The girl who she has become inexplicably fond of fits perfectly in her arms. Jaeyi feels the crook of her shoulder dampen– tears?-- and squeezes tighter.
I won’t let you go, Woo Seulgi. I promised you I’d stay.