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"You're so ridiculous, but I love you anyway."
— "Ridiculous" by Sunmi
---
The first thing Seulgi became aware of was the soft press of lips against her jaw. Then her cheek. Then the corner of her mouth.
She mumbled something incoherent, burrowing deeper into the pillow, but the kisses followed her—persistent, warm, and annoyingly delightful.
"Seul-ah." A whisper, breathy and fond. "Seul-ah, I have to go."
"No, you don't." Seulgi's voice was gravel from sleep. She reached out blindly, her tattooed arm snaking around a slender waist and yanking. The delighted squeak she received in return was worth the effort of consciousness.
Yoo Jaeyi tumbled half-onto her, catching herself with one hand on the mattress, her perfectly straightened blouse wrinkling immediately against Seulgi's bare chest. "Woo Seulgi. I ironed this."
"You look better wrinkled anyway." Seulgi cracked one eye open, then the other. The morning light filtering through their bedroom curtains caught the gold highlights in Jaeyi's dark hair, the way her lips were already tinted with the soft rose gloss she wore to work. She looked like a painting. She always looked like a painting.
Jaeyi sighed, but she was smiling—that small, private smile she only ever gave inside this room. "You're impossible."
"And yet you married me."
"A lapse in judgment I'm still learning to make peace with," Jaeyi said, but her voice was fond as she kissed the tip of Seulgi's nose.
Seulgi grinned, her piercings glinting. She tucked a strand of hair behind Jaeyi's ear, her fingers calloused from years of gripping tattoo machines, the black ink of her knuckle tattoos stark against Jaeyi's pale skin. "You're up early. Is the world ending?"
"My first parent-teacher conference of the term is in an hour." Jaeyi pulled back, adjusting her glasses—cat-eye frames that made her look both adorable and like she could ruin your entire week with a single disappointed look. "The Kim twins' mothers want to discuss 'behavioral strategies' which, translated, means they want to argue about why Haeun and Haejin shouldn't be separated into different activity groups."
Seulgi hummed, tracing idle patterns on Jaeyi's hip. "And what does the great Yoo Jaeyi think?"
"I think," Jaeyi said primly, "that Haeun bites when her sister isn't nearby to regulate her emotional state, and Haejin cries when her sister is in timeout, and if I have to endure another simultaneous bite-and-cry incident during free play, I will simply walk into the ocean."
"That's my wife." Seulgi beamed. "Threatening aquatic retirement at seven in the morning."
Jaeyi swatted her shoulder, but there was no heat in it. She glanced at the nightstand clock and made a soft, distressed noise. "I need to leave in ten minutes. The center's coffee machine is broken, and I refuse to face the Kim family without caffeine."
"Kitchen. Second cabinet from the left. I bought that expensive instant you like—the one with the gold flakes."
Jaeyi's entire face softened. It was ridiculous, really, how someone who could make a six-foot-three construction worker cry during a parent-teacher meeting could melt like butter over coffee.
"You're an angel," she said.
"I'm really not," Seulgi replied, tugging her back down for a proper kiss. Jaeyi tasted like toothpaste and that honey lip balm she used. Seulgi chased the taste, and Jaeyi let her for exactly three seconds before pulling away with a firm hand on Seulgi's chest.
"Any appointments today?"
Seulgi flopped back against the pillows, running a hand through her tousled undercut. "No. The guy who wanted the Power Rangers tattoo bailed on me." She scoffed, genuine indignation flashing across her features. "Like, who even does that? I'd been studying the anatomy and all—the placement on his forearm, the muscle movement, the way the Green Ranger's shield would sit with his skin tone. I even sketched out a custom background with the Dragonzord. Dragonzord, Jae-Jae. And he just... texts me at midnight saying he 'found someone cheaper.'"
Jaeyi was already walking toward the closet to grab her cardigan, but she paused at the doorway, her expression caught somewhere between sympathy and barely suppressed laughter. "The Green Ranger?"
"Don't you dare mock me."
"I would never." Jaeyi pressed her lips together. Her eyes were sparkling. "I'm simply appreciating the artistry."
"You're making fun of me."
"I am appreciating—"
"You have that little crinkle near your nose. That's your 'I'm lying through my teeth' crinkle."
Jaeyi abandoned all pretense and laughed, the sound bright and warm in the quiet of their bedroom. Seulgi watched her, chest aching with the familiar, stupid intensity of being in love with her wife. Jaeyi had changed into her teaching clothes—a soft lavender blouse tucked into high-waisted trousers, sensible flats on her feet, her lanyard with the little cartoon apple already looped around her neck. She looked every inch the favorite teacher of the Happy Sprouts Kindergarten Center.
She also looked, Seulgi thought, like someone who told children spooky stories during nap time even though the center director had explicitly banned them twice.
"See you at the centre then?" Jaeyi asked, looping her tote bag over her shoulder.
Seulgi stretched, her back cracking satisfyingly. "Wouldn't miss my lunch date. Someone has to make sure you actually eat and don't just survive on parent-teacher stress and children's leftover goldfish crackers."
"That happened once."
"It happened last Tuesday."
"That was a busy day."
"I love you," Seulgi said, just because she could. Just because Jaeyi was standing in their doorway looking like sunshine and soft threats.
Jaeyi's ears went pink. Even after everything, after rings and vows and shared bank accounts, she still got flustered. "I love you too. Now go back to sleep. You look like a corpse."
"You're so romantic."
"I'm practical. Goodbye, Seul-ah."
The door clicked shut, and Seulgi listened to the sound of Jaeyi's footsteps fade down the hallway. Then she reached for her phone, scrolled to her cancellation list, and sighed at the empty afternoon block.
No appointments.
Looked like she was going to the kindergarten early.
---
Three hours later, Woo Seulgi pushed through the glass doors of the Happy Sprouts Kindergarten Center, and the chaos hit her like a wave.
Not the children—the children were mostly contained, scattered across various play mats and activity tables. No, the chaos was administrative. Mrs. Park from the front desk was on the phone, her voice strained as she tried to placate someone on the other end. Two new parents hovered near the sign-in sheet, looking lost. And from the infant room at the end of the hall, she could hear crying. Not the tired, fussy kind—the desperate, hungry, "I have been abandoned" kind.
Seulgi hung her leather jacket on the volunteer hook by the door, tugged her black t-shirt straight, and walked toward the sound.
"Ah, Seulgi!" Mrs. Park covered the receiver with her hand, relief flooding her features. "Thank god. Min-jun's parents both got called into work early, and we're short-staffed in the infant room because Soojin called in sick, and—"
"I got it," Seulgi said, already rolling up her sleeves to reveal the full sleeve of flowers and mythical creatures. "Where's my nametag?"
Mrs. Park all but threw it at her
The infant room was a soft, pastel-colored space with cribs along one wall and a padded floor covered in play gyms and teething toys. Three babies were awake: Min-jun, red-faced and wailing in his bouncer; a little girl with a single puff of black hair who was chewing contemplatively on a wooden ring; and a chunky boy in the corner who was watching the chaos with the serene expression of someone who had seen it all before.
"Hey there, little man." Seulgi lifted Min-jun out of the bouncer, settling him against her chest with practiced ease. She bounced gently, her hand patting his back in a steady rhythm. "That's a big cry. Are you hungry? Are you tired? Did someone look at you wrong? I get it. I'd cry too if I were this small and the world was this big."
Min-jun's wails hitched into hiccupping sobs.
"Yeah, yeah, let it out." Seulgi kept bouncing, walking a slow circuit around the room. She nodded at the little girl, who waved the wooden ring at her. "Hi, button. Good chewing. Very good form."
The chunky boy in the corner laughed. It was a gummy, delighted sound.
By the time Jaeyi appeared in the doorway twenty minutes later, Seulgi had Min-jun asleep against her shoulder, the little girl on a play mat investigating a crinkly book, and the chunky boy—whose name turned out to be Doyun—sitting in her lap as she hummed a vaguely recognizable lullaby.
"You're doing that thing again," Jaeyi said, leaning against the doorframe.
"What thing?"
"The thing where you pretend you don't have the babies wrapped around your little finger." Jaeyi's voice was soft, the way it always got when she watched Seulgi with children. It made Seulgi feel like she'd won something, though she wasn't sure what.
"I'm a terrifying tattoo artist," Seulgi said. "I have skulls on my flash sheet. I once made a grown man cry when I did his rib piece."
"You also volunteered to babysit the entire center's infant population because Mrs. Park looked tired."
"Mrs. Park is tired. Did you see her? She's held that phone to her ear for nineteen straight minutes. She needs a vacation."
Jaeyi crossed the room, her flats silent on the padded flooring. She crouched beside Seulgi, reaching out to adjust the way Doyun was slumping against Seulgi's arm. "You're good at this."
"I'm decent."
"You're more than decent." Jaeyi's hand found Seulgi's knee, squeezing gently. "The parents ask about you, you know. The ones who drop off early. They want to know if the 'nice tattoo girl' will be here when they pick up."
Seulgi snorted. "Nice tattoo girl?"
"You're a hit with the under-two set. It's a marketable skill."
"I'll add it to my resume."
They stayed like that for a moment, the quiet hum of the infant room settling around them. Min-jun snuffled in his sleep. The little girl dropped her wooden ring and immediately forgot it existed, entranced instead by a patch of sunlight on the floor.
Then Jaeyi stood, brushing off her trousers. "Nap time starts in fifteen minutes. I'm putting the four-year-olds down, and then I'm hiding in the kitchen with my lunch. The Kim twins' mother showed up with a fifteen-point list."
"Fifteen?"
"I counted."
"Did you cry?"
"I almost cried. Then I remembered I'm a professional, so I smiled and nodded and wrote 'circus training' in my notes app as a suggestion for Haeun's biting."
Seulgi laughed, loud enough that Min-jun stirred. She soothed him immediately, pressing a kiss to his downy head. "You're an agent of chaos, Yoo Jaeyi."
"I'm a teacher."
"Same thing."
Jaeyi pointed a finger at her. "Kitchen. Nap time. Don't be late."
"I live to serve."
---
The kitchen of the Happy Sprouts Kindergarten Center was small, cluttered, and smelled faintly of applesauce and bleach. There was a round table in the corner that barely fit two chairs, and the fluorescent light above flickered every seven seconds in a way that should have been irritating but had become familiar.
This was where they ate lunch. Every day that Seulgi volunteered, every day that Jaeyi's schedule allowed. They squeezed into the corner, their shoulders pressed together, their knees knocking under the table. Jaeyi brought leftovers from dinner the night before, or rice balls she'd made that morning, or sometimes just coffee and determination. Seulgi brought whatever she'd grabbed from the convenience store on her way over, plus an extra something for Jaeyi—a yogurt drink, a piece of fruit, a small chocolate.
Today, Jaeyi had made kimbap. She unpacked it from her bento box with careful precision, lining up the pieces on a small plate. Seulgi watched her, chin propped on her hand.
"You're staring," Jaeyi said, not looking up.
"You're pretty."
"I'm also holding chopsticks. I could throw them."
"You wouldn't."
Jaeyi looked up then, and there it was—the smile. The real one, not the patient teacher smile or the polite parent smile. The smile that made her eyes crinkle and her nose scrunch and her whole face look like Seulgi had hung the moon.
"You're so weird," Jaeyi said.
"You married me anyway."
"I ask myself why every morning," Jaeyi repeated, but she leaned into Seulgi's side, and Seulgi wrapped an arm around her waist, and they ate kimbap in the flickering light while somewhere in the building, twenty-three children slept off their post-lunch sugar crashes.
"When are you two going to start a family?"
Seulgi nearly choked on a piece of radish. Beside her, Jaeyi sighed with the weariness of someone who had been asked this question approximately four hundred times.
"That was Mrs. Park, wasn't it," Jaeyi said.
"She was holding the phone to her chest and wiggling her eyebrows. I felt personally attacked."
"Mrs. Park has been asking me every Tuesday for eight months. I think she's genuinely confused about the logistics."
"Should I draw her a diagram?"
"Seul-ah."
"What? I'm a visual artist. It's a skill." Seulgi stole a piece of kimbap from Jaeyi's plate, earning herself a half-hearted swat. "Besides, we have a family. We have each other. We have that sad little succulent on the windowsill that you keep overwatering."
"His name is Tangerine, and he's thriving."
"Tangerine is a cactus, Jae-Jae. Cacti don't need water twice a week."
"Tangerine likes attention."
They bickered amicably through the rest of lunch, their voices low to avoid waking the children. Seulgi stole a few more pieces of kimbap. Jaeyi pretended to be annoyed. When Jaeyi's head drooped slightly, exhaustion from the morning's conferences catching up with her, Seulgi pressed a kiss to her temple.
"Rough day?"
"Mrs. Kim asked me if I thought Haeun's biting was a 'spiritual issue.'"
Seulgi blinked. "What does that even mean?"
"I don't know. I smiled and nodded and then immediately made a note to text my therapist."
"You have a therapist?"
"For moments exactly like this."
Seulgi was quiet for a moment, her thumb tracing circles on Jaeyi's hip. The kitchen was warm, and the light flickered, and somewhere distantly, she could hear the soft hum of the center's ancient refrigerator.
"You're really good at your job," Seulgi said finally. "You know that, right? The parents love you because you're strict and you actually care. The kids love you because you tell them about the ghost that lives in the supply closet."
"There is no ghost in the supply closet," Jaeyi said, but she was smiling against Seulgi's shoulder. "I made that up so they'd stop trying to hide in there during cleanup time."
"You made up a ghost for classroom management."
"I made up a friendly ghost. His name is Barnaby."
"Barnaby?"
"He wears a little bow tie and only haunts the glue sticks. It's very specific."
Seulgi laughed, her whole body shaking with it, and Jaeyi laughed too, and for a few minutes, they just sat there. Huddled together in a too-small kitchen in a too-bright kindergarten, married and ridiculous and utterly, completely content.
The nap time intercom crackled. Mrs. Park's voice echoed through the building: "Teachers, afternoon activities begin in fifteen minutes."
"We should move," Jaeyi said.
"We should," Seulgi agreed.
Neither of them moved.
"Seul-ah?"
"Yeah, Jae-Jae?"
Jaeyi tilted her head up, her chin resting on Seulgi's shoulder. "I'm glad you volunteer here."
“Because of free kimbap?"
"The company."
Seulgi looked down at her wife—her brilliant, terrifying, soft-hearted wife who told children spooky stories and befriended imaginary ghosts and cried at commercials but never at parent-teacher conferences.
"The company's pretty good too," Seulgi said.
She kissed her, just once, soft and quick. Then she stood, stretched, and reached for the stack of paper cups on the counter.
"Come on. I have a date with the infants. Young-jae's been trying to roll over for three days now, and I refuse to miss it."
Jaeyi tucked her hand into Seulgi's as they walked out of the kitchen. "You're ridiculous."
"And yet you married me."
"I ask myself why every—" Jaeyi caught herself, then laughed, squeezing Seulgi's fingers. Her voice lifted into something bright and teasing, almost a melody: "You know what? I don't ask anymore. I know exactly why."
Seulgi's eyebrows shot up. "Oh, you do, do you?"
"Mmhmm." Jaeyi's tone went even higher, sing-song and deliberately smug. "I know everything."
"This I have to hear."
"Maybe I'll tell you someday." Jaeyi started walking again, tugging Seulgi along by their joined hands. "Maybe I'll keep it a mystery forever."
"Yoo Jaeyi."
"Woo Seulgi."
"You can't just—" Seulgi sputtered, then laughed, loud and helpless. "You can't just drop that and walk away."
"I just did." Jaeyi glanced over her shoulder, eyes sparkling behind her glasses, that sing-song lilt still clinging to her words. "See you at dinner, Seul-ah."
She disappeared into her classroom, leaving Seulgi standing in the hallway, wedding ring warm against her finger, chest full to bursting.
"Unbelievable," Seulgi muttered to the empty corridor.
It was, all things considered, a pretty good life.