Chapter Text
Seulgi’s still sore once she makes her way up the stairs.
Her legs are used to the workout, but she’s been moving boxes into the dance studio all day and so they’ve been put to use in a different way. Her knee is especially vicious now that she’s slowed down, and is throbbing despite the six aspirin Seulgi has taken today.
She wishes that she could just collapse and sleep for the next twelve hours, but life isn’t fair and there is a whole laundry list of things that Seulgi has to do before she can cannonball herself into dreamland.
Including talking to her roommates, who are both in the main room slash kitchen area of their apartment.
Lalisa and Jisoo were both watching the news when Seulgi comes in, but they mute it when they hear the door open.
“We ordered in today,” Jisoo tells her, turning to hang over the back of the couch to look at Seulgi. “I know you are both too tired to cook, and there’s no way I can do it tonight-”
“Of course not,” Lalisa interjects, but there’s laughter in the way she says it as she exchanges a look with Seulgi.
“-and so I bought chicken. A lot of chicken,” Jisoo finishes, as though her girlfriend hadn’t spoken. “I hope you’re hungry.”
“Starving, actually,” Seulgi sighs. She flops down onto the couch, where she places her feet across Jisoo and Lalisa’s laps. There are a lot of bad things about not being able to dance professionally any longer, but being able to eat fried food whenever she wants again is not one of them.
Seulgi can’t help but sigh once she stretches out even farther. Lalisa, who knows how tired Seulgi is today, starts massaging her calf, actively avoiding her knee which Seulgi is grateful for.
She closes her eyes as Lalisa and Jisoo start discussing something that they saw on the news, and finds herself drifting off to the sounds of their voices. There’s something comforting about not having to be alone in the silence anymore. Silence isn’t an option when Jisoo is around, and it’s more comforting than Seulgi would have ever realized after she had spent so long alone and in silence.
Seulgi is startled awake by the knock on the door.
“Chicken!” Jisoo yells out, once she’s up and heading towards the door.
“Chicken!” Lalisa replies back and starts shimmying even with Seulgi’s legs still in her lap.
“Chicken~!”
“Chicken!”
“Chicken!”
“Chicken!”
“You guys are going to scare the delivery guy,” Seulgi laughs, not able to hide it anymore. Lalisa and Jisoo are so weird. They truly deserve each other.
“I’m just excited about...food,” Jisoo finishes, once she’s opened the door. “Uh, unnie, it isn’t the chicken guy.”
“Then who...oh.” Seulgi’s throat clogs up as she stands, her heartbeat suddenly pounding in her ears.
Of all the ways that Seulgi’s thought that she might have seen Joohyun a year after their break up, being all gross and unshowered was at the bottom of the list.
Joohyun looks as pristine as ever, in a stylish black blazer with white lapels and large, shiny buttons paired with a skirt. Her hair is still long and her skin is clear, and Seulgi can’t register even a hint of an expression on her face.
Meanwhile Seulgi is still wearing the same pair of leggings that she worked all day and walked home in, the oversized orange hoodie she threw on over a sports bra before she decided to leave the studio, and a face adorned with a thick layer of sweat.
Charming.
“Um,” Seulgi finds herself saying, intelligently.
“Can we talk?” Joohyun asks. She hasn’t taken a step into the apartment yet. Jisoo is still standing halfway in the doorway and half out, as if waiting for Seulgi to say the word and push Joohyun back into the hallway.
“Sure. We can talk...” The words come out without Seulgi realizing it until they’re already out into the world.
Lalisa and Jisoo are unabashedly watching what’s going on from the couch. Seulgi glances over at them, to maybe try to shame them into acting more subtle, but it doesn’t work. They both continue to stare at her owlishly.
“We can talk in my room,” Seulgi clarifies, once Jisoo and Lalisa make it clear that they aren’t going anywhere.
Seulgi closes the door to her room meaningfully, but knows that Jisoo and Lalisa are still probably going to do that couple thing where they have an entire conversation through facial expressions, and then press Seulgi for more details whenever Joohyun gets out of here. Which is hopefully soon.
Sinking down to sit on the bed makes Seulgi’s knee twinge a little bit more than she would like, a year later, but she thinks she manages to hide it well.
Joohyun stares at her knee anyway. Seulgi clears her throat, and Joohyun shakes her head, like she had been in a trance.
“Your knee,” Joohyun asks, “does it still...I mean...do you still? Are you still injured?”
“No, I just had a long day today. It just smarts sometimes, especially when I worked too hard.”
“Oh.”
There’s a long and awkward silence. Joohyun and Seulgi have been a lot of things, but awkward was never one of them. Seulgi has no idea how to bridge this gap now that it’s here, and is instead trying not to throw up the S.O.S. signs as obviously as she is feeling them right now.
“You said you needed to talk to me?” Seulgi tries, because she knows that if she leaves it to Joohyun, they’ll sit here on Seulgi’s too small bed all night.
“So as you know, Yerim turned twenty this January first,” Joohyun starts, and Seulgi’s heart twinges, because no, she hadn’t realized that.
She feels bad about that, too. She loved Yerim. Yerim was so funny, and so nice to her, even when everyone else in Joohyun’s family had not been that. She’d even stood up for Seulgi once, and Seulgi had never forgotten.
Seulgi just nods instead of saying any of this.
Joohyun has been watching her with careful eyes, and when Seulgi nods she continues, “Well, she had wanted to go on this trip during her birthday in March, but her mom convinced her that no one would be able to go on this huge two week trip with her in the middle of the year, and that not even she would be able to go. So.”
“So?”
“So Yerim is inviting friends and family--mostly friends, but I’m included in that--for a two weeks, all expenses paid trip to a resort in Switzerland.”
Rich people, Seulgi finds herself thinking, for not the first time when it comes to Joohyun’s family. She imagines that it won’t be the last time either.
“And she wants me to go? Me, specifically?” Seulgi and Yerim have text a few times after everything happened, but Yerim wasn’t a great texter, and Seulgi felt too weird about it to text her first.
“Well, she wants me to go.”
“You are her favorite cousin,” Seulgi remembers.
“Exactly. Which is why she thinks that you’re coming too.”
“...Why would she think that?”
“Because I haven’t told her that we broke up. I haven’t told anyone, actually.”
“What?” Seulgi practically gapes at her. Joohyun could have just told her that she murdered ten people and hid their bodies in the Seoul sewer system and she would have been less shocked. “It’s been a year, how do they not realize, I mean how did you get away with not taking me to things-”
“Well...my family just figured that you didn’t like the events...” Joohyun trails off. “And I told them that you were busy. They said they understood.”
“I bet they did. I’m sure they were relieved that I stopped going with you to company events.” Seulgi is surprised by the amount of bitterness in her voice. She had thought that she had gotten over all of this, but apparently she still carried it around inside of her in that box labeled All Things Bae Joohyun - Do Not Touch.
She wished that she didn’t.
“That still doesn’t explain why they think that we’re still together, though.”
“I just...I couldn’t tell them. I couldn’t...I couldn’t tell them because it was too hard, and it was easier to. I just didn’t tell them,” Joohyun says. She clears her throat delicately. “I didn’t think that it would become a problem.”
“So why couldn’t you just tell Yerim now?”
“You know how Yerim is,” Joohyun counters, and Seulgi has to admit that she has a point. Yerim is...Yerim. Telling her something this monumental could be devastating. Seulgi can’t even imagine how she would react. Especially once she learned that Joohyun--and Seulgi--had been keeping this from her for over a year. “I realize now what a big mistake it was not to tell everyone, and I will tell them. After this. It would just be easier to do it when I’m not in the same physical space as Yerim, which I will be during the New Year. So just...please. I know it’s a lot to spring on you out of nowhere, but I just thought I would ask.”
Seulgi’s mind starts racing. She can’t believe that this is happening, that Joohyun would have the gall to ask her something like this. But Joohyun’s face is so earnest, and her voice is so pleading. Seulgi can feel herself almost starting to fold.
Almost.
“You want me to pretend, for two weeks, in Switzerland, that the two of us are in a relationship?”
Joohyun winces to have it laid out in front of them whittled down to the bone like this. “Yes. And I know I have no right to ask anything of you. Please know that.”
“So, what, Yerim is going to fly us all up there?”
“Me, you, and two of her other friends. Everything will be paid for, you don’t have to worry about that.”
“Don’t worry, I wasn’t.” Seulgi manages to not sound bitter that time, and counts it as a win. “I’ll have to ask my mom if she has anything special planned for the New Year. If she does I won’t be able to come.”
Seulgi knows there’s nothing special planned for the New Year. Her brother’s baby turned two, and as far as she knows there isn’t another one on the way just yet. Her mom would have let her know by now if there was anything happening that Seulgi needed to be present for.
Seulgi’s mom would also understand if she had other plans for the holiday, as she and Joohyun have spent the welcoming of the New Year together before. But the catch is, Seulgi’s mother knows that Joohyun and Seulgi have broken up.
It was such a large, devastating, immediate change. Seulgi had carried it on her face for weeks, or so everybody that knew her said. But her mom had especially noticed. She had taken one look at Seulgi after she had explained that she and Joohyun were done, probably forever, and had gone to the market to make Seulgi’s favorite meal.
She couldn’t imagine that Joohyun hadn’t been the same way--but then again that just shows how little time Joohyun spent with her family, and how little they knew her even though she worked with them every day.
“I understand. And I know you might have to work, or might not be able to come for several other reasons. I just wanted to ask.”
“I’ll let you know,” Seulgi says. “Is that everything?”
“Yes,” Joohyun says. “That’s all.” She stands, but lingers in Seulgi’s bedroom.
It’s strange to think that, before now, this had been a space that belonged to Seulgi that Joohyun had never entered before. That would have happened more and more as time went on--it had already happened in another way with the studio--but there was a time when even the thought of Seulgi existing somewhere without Joohyun knowing what it was like would have been an impossible thought.
Now, it was just their reality.
Joohyun must be thinking about it too, because her eyes glance around the room as if she is soaking in every detail.
There’s a knock on the door that breaks the strange feeling that’s settled between them. Lalisa pops her head in. “The chicken just came,” she says. “Joohyun-ssi, you can stay for dinner, if you want. We have more than enough.”
That gets Joohyun moving. “No, I should really head back home. Thank you, though. And thank you, Seulgi, for listening.”
“Of course, unnie,” Seulgi says, and she tries to smile.
Joohyun tries to smile back. Then Joohyun leaves, taking her fake smile and Seulgi’s mixed up feelings with her.
Jisoo has all the chicken laid out when Seulgi makes her way to the living room.
“You have to go,” Jisoo says finally.
“So you two heard everything?”
“The walls here are thin,” Lalisa says, grimacing slightly.
“Don’t I know it,” Seulgi tells them, if only to make them flustered.
Lalisa is really the only one that works on now. Jisoo is more than used to the teasing, and more than that, she’s even better at it than Seulgi.
“You should still go. Get out of here.”
“How can I, when there’s still so much work to be done on the studio?”
“I can handle it,” Lalisa jumps in. “It’s going to be half mine, too. And it’s not like we’re going to be open the week of or the week after the New Year anyway. So really, go. You deserve it.”
“But go...with Joohyun? I mean, it would be weird.” Seulgi is barely trying now, and they all know it.
Jisoo ignores her completely. “Not as weird as you not jumping on the chance to go to an all expense paid trip to Switzerland. I mean, seriously. If you don’t want to go then I will.”
“Do you think you’d be able to just ignore her? At least when you’re not pretending to be in a relationship with her, still?” Lalisa at seems a little worried. Certainly more than Jisoo does, gnawing on a chicken leg while they discuss this.
Ignore Joohyun? The idea seems impossible.
“No.”
“I say just go for it,” Jisoo says. “What’s the worst that could happen? You would become too relaxed after two months of working your ass off? You’d drink too much hot chocolate? You’d enjoy living in the lap of luxury?”
What’s the worst that could happen? Seulgi thinks on Joohyun’s solemn face the entire time she had been explaining her predicament. As if she had been explaining something at a concept meeting for blush, or whatever B&K Cosmetics was doing now.
She looks down at her chicken instead of thinking about Joohyun for a minute longer. “I don’t know if I want to know what the worst that could happen could be,” Seulgi says, and stuffs an entire beautiful, brown, crispy chicken thigh into her face.
The first time Seulgi saw Joohyun, it was when Joohyun stepped into her dance studio as a student, back when she’d been teaching during college.
The first thing Seulgi noticed about Joohyun was how beautiful she was. That was unavoidable; Joohyun could wear a brown paper bag over her face and you’d still remark on how pretty she was.
The second thing that Seulgi noticed about Joohyun was how elegantly she moved. The class wasn’t a traditional dance class, and the studio that seulgi worked at for her entire tenure in college wasn’t a traditional dance studio. That class in particular was for office workers who needed an excuse to get out of the office and be active, and so there was a lot more random movement to music and stretching than there was actual dancing.
And while that might have been the case, Seulgi had been classically trained up until she had gone to college. The class might not have been dancing exactly, but Joohyun was a shining gem in the class for sure.
The third thing that Seulgi noticed about Joohyun was how funny she was. Joohyun was the youngest person in the room, other than Seulgi, by at least a decade. And though Seulgi tried to keep it tight inside of her chest, because Joohyun was a student and a client and not Seulgi’s friend, she honestly liked Joohyun.
Joohyun had a way of catching her eye in the mirrors of the studio and making Seulgi feel like she was in on a joke that had been running for years. She also stayed behind to talk to Seulgi after class sometimes too, which did nothing to help the crush that Seulgi had bubbling up in her chest, the one that frothed harder and harder the more time passed.
The dance class only lasted for three months, and at the end Seulgi was sad because she really did enjoy her time teaching that class, but also because it meant that she wouldn’t see Joohyun every week anymore.
On the last day of class, Joohyun lingered behind, tying her street shoes on too slowly the way she had other times that she had wanted to stay behind and talk. Seulgi was grateful for the excuse, and sat down beside her on the bench.
Joohyun reached into her bag and slid a piece of paper over at Seulgi.
It was an application for another class at the studio. “What is this?” Seulgi asked, reading it over. Joohyun had filled most of it out already, though she had left her preferred instructor line blank.
“It’s an application for another class. I want to come back here, but I don’t want you to be my teacher because I want to ask you out on a date.” Joohyun’s face was flushed, which might have just from the workout they’d both had, but probably wasn’t.
Sitting there, looking at Joohyun with all of her attention instead of having to share it with the other students in the class, Seulgi’s heart swelled up five times its natural size.
“You should ask for Jimin, he’s great,” Seulgi told her, unable to hide her smile even though she had been attempting to keep her face neutral. “Because I’d love to go on a date with you, outside of class.”
Seulgi got the same feeling from watching the way Joohyun’s smile spread across her face that she would if she watched a rose bloom. It was that lovely and that miraculous.
They sat there and smiled at each other on that hard, wooden bench. And when they both moved their faces closer together to kiss--because that was the only thing that Seulgi wanted to do in that moment, and couldn’t believe that Joohyun wanted the same--they were still smiling.
Maybe the timing was weird and the setting wasn’t explicitly romantic, but when Seulgi pulled away from the kiss she saw their reflections in all of the mirrors of the studio she saw that they were both distinctly happy.
And that was more than enough for her, then.
The conversation with Seulgi’s mother takes approximately seven minutes and thirty-nine seconds. Seulgi knows because she watched as the numbers flashed across the screen, a little disbelieving.
“You deserve to go somewhere nice,” Seulgi’s mom had said, her voice so warm and maternal that it made Seulgi want to cry a little bit. Her mom had been the one that had helped her recovery from surgery, alone. Seulgi had ended up spilling her during the long process of resting and her physical therapy appointments, and her mom had been the one that had listened to everything. “This entire year has been so hard for you. If you wanted to start off the New Year somewhere nice, somewhere new, then you should do that. Go and have a good time and bring back a souvenir for your poor mother!”
Of course, Seulgi hadn’t told her mother that Joohyun had been the one to invite her. She isn’t sure how her mother would take it--after Seulgi had told her they had broken up, neither of them had brought Joohyun up again.
It’s probably for the best. Maybe. Seulgi hopes so.
After the call with her mother, the only thing Seulgi really wants to do is cry, so she goes out into the living room instead to avoid that.
Seulgi’s roommates are both out, the way that she knew they would be. Lalisa is on her laptop, and Jisoo is curled up into her, playing a game on her phone. Seulgi goes and sits down on the chair across from them, because she isn’t sure she wants to cuddle right now.
Lalisa is the one that looks up from her electronic first. “Unnie, are you okay?” she asks, her concern evident.
“I just...don’t know what to do. My mom said it was fine, so now...”
“So now you have to make a decision,” Jisoo says, dropping her phone on her lap. She curls further into Lalisa.
“Exactly. And I don’t know what the right decision is.”
“I don’t think there’s a right or wrong. I mean, it’s a trip. A very nice, very expensive trip, that you’ll be taking.”
“And lying to Joohyun’s family the entire time.”
“I mean...would you be lying or would it be more like she’s lying and you’re just there, appreciating free stuff?”
“I’d be lying.”
“Good point,” Jisoo offers.
“I don’t think that part really matters as much as the other part. The Joohyun part,” Lalisa offers.
“Can you handle seeing her all the time, being with her?”
Seulgi’s wraps herself in the soft blanket that had been hanging over the chair. “I don’t know. I think so. I mean, it’s been a year.”
“Sure, it’s been a year. But it’s been a year, and Joohyun hasn’t told her family that you’ve broken up. So time is meaningless and life isn’t life but a simulation controlled by robots.”
“Unnie!” Lalisa said, before Seulgi could respond, and Jisoo laughs.
“I mean it, though. Time doesn’t determine feelings. And I know how much you loved Joohyun, and how much your relationship hurt you. So I think it really boils down to, can you handle pretending to be in a relationship with Joohyun?”
“Well, I’ve had a lot of practice,” Seulgi throws out, but the joke doesn’t land gracefully. She tangles her fingers in the blanket and then smoothes them out. “I think I can do it. No, I know I can. It can’t be that bad, and I’m sure no one expects us to make out in front of them.”
“What does pretending to be in a relationship even entail?” Jisoo asks.
“Hugs,” Lalisa says confidently. “I bet there are hugs. And...I don’t know. Standing next to her?”
“Can you do that?” Jisoo asks. “Can you handle that?”
“Yes,” Seulgi says, and a sudden rush of confidence comes over her because she can handle that. It’s not like Seulgi hates Joohyun. She never has. And Joohyun was never that affectionate in public anyway, so it’s not like they’ll have to be all over each other anyway.
She’s always wanted to go to Europe, and this is as good a chance as any. How often do free trips to other continents actually come up?
And she’ll get to see Yerim again, which will be great. Even if she’ll be lying the entire time, like Lalisa said, it would be still nice to see her. And when they never see each other again, at least Seulgi will know in advance this time.
The pain at that thought hits her like a knife to the gut, but she decides to think about that later.
“Yes, I can,” Seulgi tries out, and the words come out strong.
“Good. I’m glad you aren’t going to just be here by yourself while Lalisa and I are in Thailand for the New Year,” Jisoo says.
“You shouldn’t be alone, unnie.” Lalisa’s voice is soft as she says it.
“Well, I won’t be. I’ll be with Joohyun and her family in Switzerland. This will go fine, I’m sure.”
And to make sure that she doesn’t lose her nerve, the next thing Seulgi does is call Joohyun.
Seulgi meets Joohyun at the airport, having declined Joohyun’s offer of having a driver pick her up and take her all the way to Incheon. She took the bus and then the train instead.
Joohyun is waiting for her, because of course it takes less time in a car than it does on public transportation.
She looks up and smiles when she sees Seulgi, and waves. “Hi,” she says, her face still rosy with the cold. She must have just gotten here, then.
“Hi,” Seulgi replies.
Joohyun slides her ticket. “I have everything else handled, don’t worry.”
“Thank you,” Seulgi says, and goes to check in and get her bags checked.
It’s easy not to speak while doing all the inane tasks required after arriving at the airport. But the lines aren’t very long--the flight is twelve hours, so they’re leaving Korea late to arrive in Switzerland early, and they’re going to have to hope that they can beat the jet lag--and everything goes as smoothly as they usually do with Joohyun involved.
B&K Cosmetics, despite being a very successful international make-up brand sold in one hundred and fifty six countries around the world, does not have its own personal jet. They’re flying first class, and are escorted onto the plane first.
First class is roomy and comfortable as always--Seulgi and Joohyun travelled a few times while they were together, though they never went anywhere as far away as ever--but it’s intimate too. There’s a lot of privacy and no noise or business keeping Joohyun and Seulgi from speaking now.
Back when they first broke up, there were a lot of things that Seulgi wanted to tell Joohyun. A lot of questions that she wanted to ask. Thousands of conversations that she wanted to have.
Now that they have the chance, Seulgi can’t bring herself to discuss any of them, despite the way that they burn in her mind. Why would you ask me to do this now, why would you ask me at all, why wouldn’t you tell your family that we had broken up when you had chosen them over me so many times before, why, why why-
“So,” Seulgi says, realizing how awkward she sounds for sure. She wishes that she could take the word back. “How have you been?”
It’s an innocuous, basic question. Something that you might ask an acquaintance that you see while waiting in line to see a movie with other people, or one that you might ask in the waiting room of the doctor’s office.
Not something you ask the girl that you daydreamed about marrying, once.
“I’ve been fine,” Joohyun says, and it’s not a good answer and it doesn’t seem completely truthful, but it’s also possible that Seulgi is projecting. She can’t tell, Joohyun is that placid. “How have you been?”
“Busy,” Seulgi answers. She decides to throw them both a bone and elaborate. “I’m opening a dance studio in a month, and I’m really excited about it.”
Joohyun looks genuinely surprised by this, and though it’s irrational, Seulgi can’t help be the slightest bit annoyed. Why should Joohyun look so surprised about this? She knew that had been Seulgi’s dream for after she had finished dancing professionally. Her knee had just sped things up, a few years. Or decades, rather. Unless of course, she had forgotten that.
But Seulgi’s annoyance dissipates as quickly as it flared up when Joohyun says, in the most honest voice imaginable, “I’m really happy that you’re still dancing. I wasn’t sure if you would be.”
“I wasn’t immobilized, I just would never be able to dance professionally ever again. And it still hurts sometimes, but I love dancing enough that I would keep doing it even if it hurt all the time.”
“I’m so happy for you.”
Seulgi wishes for a moment that there would be some note of insincerity the way Joohyun says that, but there isn’t any at all. If anything, she seems just a little wistful.
Seulgi wonders what her expression would be like if she told her about all the crying sessions and the physical therapy appointments that made her cry harder, about what it had been like clawing herself back up to The Land of the Okay.
But she doesn’t want to guilt Joohyun, she never did. So she stays silent.
“Have you been doing anything?” Seulgi asks, desperately wanting to change the subject now. She doesn’t want to keep talking about herself, because she doesn’t want to give anything else away.
Joohyun’s face clears again. Seulgi remembers with perfect clarity the way that she hated how Joohyun could do that, the way that she could seem as if she was feeling nothing even though Seulgi knew just how much she was feeling underneath all of that, how nervous or unhappy or even, on occasion, excited.
Seulgi used to know which one it was. Now, she can’t even guess.
“I’ve mostly been working,” Joohyun says, once a beat has passed. Seulgi has to resist the urge to scoff.
Working. Of course Joohyun has been working. What else would she be doing?
Missing Seulgi? As if.
“I see,” Seulgi says. She takes a long sip of the complimentary water, the fancy kind from some magic mountain stream and absolutely not from the tap, provided by the airline before she says, “Well, I’m going to try to sleep now. Goodnight, unnie.”
Seulgi turns her back to Joohyun and grabs a pillow before she can register Joohyun’s surprise of this abrupt ending to their awkward and stilted conversation.
It doesn’t matter. They don’t need to talk that much yet, not when they’re alone with no one to see them, anyway.
Seulgi goes to bed with a sour feeling in her stomach, and pretends that everything is fine.