Chapter Text
There are many things about Wendy that the public knows.
(And by public, she means the people she talks to on daily basis, not the general public kind; God, no, she’d rather be buried alive rather than having the whole world knows some of these secrets-not-so-secret about her.)
Anyways. Back to the topic. There are many things about Wendy that the public knows, including but not limited to these facts:
- She likes to sing. And she sounds amazing (at least Seulgi thinks so—who’s Seulgi? Don’t worry, we’ll get to that later). Despite that, Wendy used to dislike singing in front of many people, so it’s no wonder her friends got so surprised at how nice her voice is when she first started her ‘career’ as a broadcaster at the campus radio and was forced to sing a song (Wendy chose Through the Night, and Seulgi actually recorded the entire song. Like, from start to finish. Deadass).
- She is a Google-nerd...a Search King...for lack of a better description. Wendy actually pulled an all-nighter scrolling through Wikipedia pages for fun not once or twice but twelfth times. (Alright, fine, maybe not a lot of people knows this, but you can try and go tell some random people who knows her this fact and they’d only nod in understanding and probably go, yeah, of course she would.)
- She bakes. (There’s no explanation needed because this is like the most basic information about her, literally everyone that has been in the same class with her for at least a semester knows this. She bakes delicious cookies and brownies in great amounts at least once a month—unless it’s finals week, of course—and she is generous enough to share them with everyone. Poor college students love free food. They love this arrangement. They can’t help but love Wendy as well.)
- She has only been seen hanging with two people. One of them is Seulgi (ha!), aka her best friend forever, as Seulgi herself has proclaimed. She wasn’t lying, though, we know those two are inseparable, attached to the hip, bestfriends for better and for worse, till death do them part, blah-diddy-blah-blah-blah...you get the drill. The other one is Sejeong, her roommate, whom she adores so much although the girl sexiles her from her own damn room at least once a week, forcing Wendy to make a trip (again and again) to Seulgi’s house to have a sleepover. Right. Well, at least Sejeong is nice. And pretty. And has a nice voice. Yeah. (There are actually two more people Wendy is close to, but they are Seulgi’s friend and Sejeong’s girlfriend, so they don’t really count. Sorry.)
- She is gay. (Um. No explanation needed. Yeah.)
- She is hopeless when it comes to pretty people. She can’t stand pretty people. Not in the I’m-disgusted-by-you way, no, quite the contrary, really, because Wendy gets nervous as heck when she is in the proximity of one. She cannot not make a fool of herself. It is as if her ability to do anything properly has fallen into a coma or something, cruelly leaving her alone...squawking...screeching...stumbling over words… which is exactly what is happening right now, by the way.
“Uhm, hey? Can you hear me?”
You know what? Scratch fact #4. From now on, Seulgi is no longer her bff. The honorary title is forcibly moved from her to...to someone else. Sejeong, possibly. Or Sooyoung… wait, not Sooyoung, that girl loves creating hell for Wendy, even has the audacity to laugh out loud in front of her whenever she got into trouble. Definitely not her. She is fine with Nayoung—Sejeong’s girlfriend—too. Whatever. She could do fine with anyone that is not Seulgi because at least others won’t do this kind of betrayal, this flippin’ betrayal…
“Hey!”
Wendy startles. “H-h-yes, I mean, hey, no what, hi! Can I help you?” she, unsurprisingly, squeaks. A second later, she realises that she just talked in English. Oh, God. “I’m sorry. I mean, hi, what can I do for you?”
The angel (what?), no, the girl (not just girl, her brain scolds, most probably the descendant of Aphrodite) looks back at her funnily.
And god.
She is so fucking beautiful.
Wendy could feel her resolution breaking slowly, her many thoughts start tying themselves into a wacky knot, her brain doing a small Macarena, her tongue twisting, and boy, oh boy, she’s going to fall down, isn’t she?
“I’m saying,” says the angel, or the descendant of Aphrodite (just say the girl, you dumb-dumb, a voice inside her head that sounds eerily like Seulgi chides). “I cannot find the instant noodles. Do you know where they are placed?”
“Oh, um, instant noodles, oh, yes. I...yes. I know.”
The girl raises an eyebrow, and Wendy wants to die.
“It’s…” she takes two steps to the left, one leg at a time like a freaking dysfunctioning human, and opens the top drawer. “...here. Instant noodles. Here. In the top drawer. Yeah.”
I’m so sorry, Wendy wants to scream, but she knows it’ll make the situation worse, so she keeps her mouth shut—still in the form of a smile so tight that it’s more like a grimace rather than what it’s intended—hoping that the girl would soon leave the Kang family’s kitchen and leave her alone to dwell on yet another failed, embarrassing encounter with yet another pretty people.
Which, by the way, won’t happen anytime soon. Because the girl is now taking a step closer to Wendy to reach for one of the instant noodles, boldly invading Wendy’s personal space, and then another step, and then she walks past Wendy to get the pot, their shoulders brush slightly…
Wendy is dead. RIP.
“Do you want some, too?” the girl offers kindly.
But Wendy is not breathing, and she is pretty much a dead person right now.
“What flavor? Spicy?”
Her lungs burn, and she is forced to take a deep breath to ease the pain. “Not...spicy…” she manages to choke out. And what? Did she just agree to eat together with the...angel? Descendant of Aphrodite? Possibly the most gorgeous human to ever exist? No, she did not.
Too late. The stranger already nods. “Ok, then. Not spicy.” She says.
Here is the context, if any of you still don’t get the event currently rolling before our eyes:
It’s Saturday night. An hour ago, Wendy just got ushered out of her own dorm because Nayoung is coming over, and so she packed her things in a backpack and made her way to Seulgi’s always welcoming house. Mother Kang opened the door for her, they conversed for about eleven minutes, and then Seulgi came out of her room with a severe bedhead. Mother Kang left to do some errands, and so Wendy went to Seulgi’s room. Ten minutes ago, she got thirsty, and she went down to get a water bottle, except she saw a package of instant cocoa beverages sitting on the counter. She texted Seulgi, asking if she could have some because manners, and Seulgi replied sure, so Wendy placed her phone down, retrieved a cup from the shelf, turned back, and met the eyes of an angel, descendant of Aphrodite, possibly the most gorgeous human to ever exist.
If that still doesn’t explain everything, then here, have some more information about our damsel in distress named Wendy:
She is gay.
She is hope-fucking-less around pretty people. She gets nervous and she gets flustered and she stumbles over her words and she says a lot of nonsense and she is just really, really awkward.
And yet here she is, standing frozen, absolutely unmoving, in the Kang family’s kitchen, clutching onto a cup of hot cocoa, in the presence of 1 (one) beautiful lady with long, warm chocolatey hair and eyes as clear as the...sky? (How does the saying go, anyway?)
Shit. Absolute shit.
Screw you, Seulgi. Screw you for not giving a warning beforehand. Screw you for letting Wendy wander all around the house, completely unaware of the existence of the stranger (a beautiful one at that, too). Screw you for letting this weird, embarrassing encounter happened.
Oh my God, Wendy, can you please calm down?
Wendy takes a deep breath, holding it for a few seconds, lets it out. Yeah, that’s good. Inhale, exhale. Yes.
Three minutes pass. Wendy is still holding onto her cup as if her life depended on it, still doing the breathing exercises, still saying nothing.
“So, Seulgi’s friend, huh?” the stranger speaks up suddenly, although her eyesight is still focused on the boiling pot in front of her. Oh yeah, she is making ramyeon both for herself and Wendy. Unbelievable. “I’m the cousin, by the way, did she tell you about me?”
Cousin… cousin…um….oh, right, the cousin! Seulgi did say sometime ago that one of her distant relatives is visiting. So maybe Seulgi did warn her, after all, she just left out some important detail like how gorgeous the cousin is. Or maybe you don’t describe your cousin like that. Hmm. Now she feels bad for cursing Seulgi earlier.
“Irene?” Wendy guesses, and heaves a sigh when Irene nods. “Your name...is pretty. Are you not from Korea?” shut! Now that she’s not a nervous wreck ready to drop dead anytime soon she’s getting too brave. Tsk-tsk.
Irene chuckles.
Wendy supposes that is the kind of sound you’d hear when you get to heaven.
Irene laughs harder, and that is when Wendy realises that she just said that aloud. She smiles sheepishly, mumbling sorry, but Irene brushes her off.
“It’s my, uh, nickname, or penname. It just sorta stuck, and now I’m more comfortable going by it.” Irene explains after letting Wendy’s question hanging on the air for a moment. She fiddles with the ladle some more, using it to stir the pot’s content, and Wendy can’t help but watch, fascinated, because sure she gets nervous when she’s near pretty people but Irene is a lot more than just a pretty person, and it shows.
(It is also possible that Wendy is just looking at things too thoroughly, because let’s not kid ourselves, they just met. Wendy literally knows nothing about Irene and so she’s not exactly the right person to be asked about Irene.
Maybe we should get Seulgi.)
“You used to live abroad, then?”
“Huh?” Wendy looks up from her cup, her brain registering the question eleven seconds too late. “Oh, uh, yeah. I used to live in Canada. Yeah.” Why does she say yeah so many times?
Irene hums, “Cool.” Then she glances at Wendy, piercing eyes and all, and Wendy not-so-subtly freezes. “What is that you’re holding?” asks Irene, and it takes Wendy embarrassingly long twelve seconds to realise that she’s asking about the hot cocoa.
“Hot cocoa. Though it’s not hot anymore.” Wendy replies, shaking her cup a bit. And then, because of manners: “Want me to make you some, too?”
“Sure.”
Silence falls, then, both too busy doing their jobs. Wendy wants to say something, anything, to fill in the figuratively wide space between them. Maybe she should ask about the reason the other is staying at the Kang’s residence—though that doesn’t seem like a good idea, Wendy is never eloquent, she’d probably end up making the question sound offensive. Maybe she could ask about Irene more, like, what does she do, how old is she, those kind of basic questions, you know, just to remove the heavy silence currently blanketing them.
“How—” Wendy begins to say, the exact same time Seulgi chooses to show up, shouting, “Ramyeon?”
Wendy sighs. Just when she gathered enough courage.
“Make your own food,” Irene says to Seulgi as she retrieves two bowls from the shelf, apparently done with the ramyeon. She puts down everything on the counter and motions Wendy to come closer. She does.
Seulgi whines, “You’re literally eating my food, unnie,”
Irene glares (is it jokingly? Is it seriously? Wendy honestly can’t tell), but doesn’t say anything, so Wendy says, “We can share mine.”
“Huh? Unnie made you ramyeon?” Seulgi asks in disbelief, which is pretty understandable, Wendy being stranger to Irene and all.
“Yes, and in exchange, she made me this,” Irene replies, bringing up her hot cocoa. “Anyway, don’t share your ramyeon with Seulgi. Go make your own, Seul,” she continues, her right hand still busy pouring noodles from the pot to the bowls. “I still have work to do, so I’m gonna eat in my room. Enjoy the food,” she says the last bit to Wendy, winking, and leaves.
It takes Wendy about a minute to gain her composure back because. Did. Irene. Just. Winked. At. Her?
“Amazing,” Seulgi mumbles as she shovels a spoonful of noodles into her mouth, having been settled on the counter. “Left you for a moment and you’re already flirting and being grossly domestic with my cousin.”
Wendy sputters.
*
It’s two hours later, when she is already buried deep under Seulgi’s thick duvets, the latter asleep on her side, that Wendy realises the fact that Irene never asked for her name.
(Which can only mean one thing: Irene never cares enough about her in the first place to actually want to know.
Right?
Why does it sting?)
*
At precisely 6 am, Wendy goes home. To Seulgi she reasons that she still has works due tomorrow to do, one that she can’t put off any longer, and she should thank the heaven because Seulgi doesn’t question further (most probably because the other doesn’t seem to be even awake at the moment). To herself she reasons that a morning walk would be good for her, which is not entirely a lie, because she does enjoy walking around, especially in the morning.
The actual, truthful reason is that she doesn’t want to face Irene again.
Ok, she knows how that sounds.
But she doesn’t have a choice, ok? It’s either leaving or getting stuck into another awkward situation again, and frankly speaking, she is too exhausted to be having another embarrassing moment. Enough is enough.
It’s certainly not because she is too afraid to see Irene and realising how hopeless Wendy is. No. Definitely, absolutely not.
Oh my God. Even thinking about this is embarrassing. Wendy is not a person who takes everything seriously, ok, she is not usually this emo, she is not the type to get all pouty and bitter over people not wanting to have anything to do with her.
You know what? She’ll just stop thinking. Wendy reaches into his pocket and puts out her phone, rummages through her bag to find her earphone and plugs it on.
Here, better.
“You look like you’ve been through hell and back,” Sejeong comments the moment Wendy steps in inside their shared dorm. She is standing in the middle of the kitchen island, Nayoung sitting beside her, nodding.
Wendy groans. “Didn’t get much sleep,” she replies, making her way closer to grab a water bottle. “Why are you two already awake?”
Nayoung’s sheepish reply makes her regret even thinking of asking.
“Never went to sleep,”
Wendy groans, louder and more desperate this time, while Sejeong cackles madly in the back. “One of these days one of you gonna kill yourself by doing excessive… sexual activities. Or back problems. Whatever, I’m gonna sleep some more.” She turns, waving her hand as a goodbye.
“You need to get laid, too!” Sejeong shouts.
“No I’m not!” Wendy retaliates in her ‘this conversation is dismissed’ tone. Sejeong and Nayoung just laughs some more.
Sighs.
*
A week goes by and Wendy is perfect. Peachy. Never been better. She’d even go as far as telling you that she has forgotten the goddess that is Seulgi’s cousin. It’s the thing about fireworks, she thinks, because while it’s astonishing and beautiful and spectacular at the moment—it doesn’t last for too long. As the moment passes, so is the euphoria.
Irene’s existence in Wendy’s small circular life, she supposes, is similar to that.
It probably has to do with the fact that she hasn’t had another encounter with Irene, but that’s the least of Wendy’s worries because it’s not like Irene attends the same college as her, which would entail unexpected meeting and such, and because Wendy’s life basically only involves around campus. So long as she keeps her distance from Seulgi’s house, then everything is fine.
(Seulgi did question about the absence of her regular visitation, to which Wendy brushed off with a wave, a tight smile, and a lie about having to work on another important project.
Wendy has to beg for Sejeong to not sexile her anymore, though, or else she’d be forced to sleep at the library.)
“No, Wendy unnie, you don’t understand,” Yeri is saying, and she’s right, because Wendy is not even listening to her. “I need your pass so I could do some more studying.”
Wendy sighs, fixing her bag on her shoulders before pushing on the door to the coffee shop inside the campus. The bell atop her head rings as she makes her way inside, Yeri following suit. She stands before the counter, business being slow so no queue, and recites her order to the bartender.
“All of your study courses are held in the library, you don’t need to be inside the actual school buildings,” Wendy explains to her after, exasperated. Yeri is still in the pre-university course, meaning she should only have access to the library, and thus, her wanting to borrow Wendy’s pass to enter the Business faculty building to, as Yeri claims, do some more studying is completely illogical and illegal. Wendy doesn’t do illogical, and she certainly doesn’t do illegal.
“Oh, I want a pumpkin cake,” Yeri says when the girl behind the counter is handing Wendy her coffee, completely ignoring Wendy’s reasoning.
“That’d be 15.000 won,” the girl says, and Wendy digs through her purse for cash because she knows damn well that Yeri won’t be the one paying for her food.
“Thank you.”
The girl nods, and Wendy turns, scanning the room for vacant seats so she could sit down and plant some logic inside Yeri’s head. And….oh.
In retrospect, she should’ve seen this coming.
(Because Life is a sneaky little shit and Wendy is the kind of person that trusts too easily, gives all too quickly, and so she always falls into the trap that Life has personally set for her. Like the calm before the storm.
Except the storm is not shaped as such, it is in the form of a beautiful human with chocolatey hair that looks so soft falling onto the owner’s shoulders.)
In reality, she freaks out.
It is also unfortunate that Yeri is already aiming for the table set next to the one the person’s occupying. Wendy is about to take two wide steps to snatch Yeri’s shoulder and drags her out of the cafe, immediately, but before she could even take another breath the person looks up.
“Um, hi,” Wendy manages to greet, voice quivering.
Irene stares back at her with wide eyes, and then the line of her lips break into an easy smile (ouch). “Oh! Fancy seeing you here,” she says, Wendy watches numbly as Irene starts moving her stuff to her side so the seat next to her would be empty. “Come sit down.”
Meanwhile Yeri, seemingly oblivious to the stiffening of Wendy’s body and the war happening inside her head, takes the seat in front of Irene and places down her bag. Now the only chairs left are the one besides Yeri and the other besides Irene—would it be considered rude if Wendy chose the one next to Yeri? Yes, right? Internally screaming, Wendy ends up sitting down beside Irene.
“You know Wendy unnie?” Yeri asks Irene, who hums and nod. “How do you know her?”
Wendy wonders why on the earth Yeri would ask that, but Irene already answers.
“Through a mutual friend. You know Kang Seulgi?”
Yeri nods. “Ah, Seulgi unnie.”
“How about you? Are you a student here, as well? You look a bit too young to be a university student,” asks Irene, gaze focused on Yeri. She is attentive, Wendy thinks, and attractive. That’s unfair. “I’m Irene.”
“Oh, the name’s Yeri, I’m still taking a pre-university courses, so.” Yeri shrugs, then calmly eats her pumpkin cake. Wendy admires her confidence around new people, Yeri might be younger, but her making-friends quality is already at least three times better than that of Wendy’s. Then again, it is probably thanks to Yeri’s ability of not freaking out whenever pretty people so much as talk to her. Hmm.
Irene says, “Seulgi said this is your favorite cafe inside campus. So I decided to try visit,”
Wendy promptly chokes—it is both fortunate and unfortunate that she was actually in the middle of sipping her latte because at least she doesn’t choke on nothing, but boy, does choking hurt. “Oh—” she tries to say after the coughing subsides a bit, but there really is nothing she can think of that won’t make her appear to be an annoyingly overconfident person (which, mind you, she isn’t in the slightest bit), so she settles for a confused, “Why?”
“Aside from wanting to see you again, I wanted to try new things.” Irene replies, tone flat and calm, collected, as if she didn’t just say the most controversial/flirtiest thing Wendy has ever heard. Wendy wants to cry.
She decides to focus on the latter reason, not the former, because her cheeks are already hot as hell and she doesn’t think she could take one (1) more “leading” remark. Not that she is 100% sure of Irene’s feelings, the girl is probably just messing with her mind. Or, maybe, Irene is just trying to make friends, and her intention weren’t all intended to get Wendy all flustered and interested romantically.
Now, that would be a harsh reality.
“New things like what?” Wendy asks, trying to ignore the incessant curious glance Yeri is throwing her way.
Shrugging, Irene sips on her coffee. “Did Seulgi tell you about my job?”
“Huh? No, don’t think so.”
“Well, I write novels.” Says Irene. “That’s partly the reason why I came to Seoul. You know that your surroundings affect the way your brain works, right? The other reason is because I, uh, was running out of ideas, so I thought visiting new places will help me with that.”
In other words: I was just playing with you, I didn’t really visit this place to see you again, I was just looking for foreign cafés that hopefully will help me get my creative juice back.
Wendy tries not to show her bitterness.
“Writing is…uh, cool. Have you published any?” Wendy asks, glad that she sounds steady and not like in the middle of another emotional crisis. Pretty people is so exhausting to be around.
Irene smiles, and it’s so beautiful that Wendy would’ve fallen down had she been standing instead of sitting. “Three books,” she says as another smile graces her feature. She looks proud. Wendy loves women who know what they’re doing and take pride in it. “You might want to check the nearest bookstore after this.”
“Of course.” Wendy nods, making a mental note to ask Seulgi later for the titles of Irene’s books. Or maybe she could just spend two hours inside the bookstore looking for them. Wendy’s got time.
Yeri chooses the moment to break in. With a gossip-y tone she tells Irene, “Unnie, the guy on your left keeps looking at you like, dreamily.” She leans closer. “He’s kinda cute. What do you think, Wendy unnie? Oh, wait, Wendy unnie isn’t interested in guys like that—”
Wendy’s eyes automatically widen. What the fuck—why is Yeri sharing that, what the hell? Even so, she doesn’t say anything, unconsciously holds her breath instead, waiting for Irene’s response, half afraid that Irene would say something homophobic (of course Wendy didn’t really think that she is capable of being so, Irene looks like she’d support same-sex marriage or feminism or…whatever. Writers are usually more open-minded about these things, or so Wendy hopes, because she doesn’t think she could face Irene again if Irene really turns out to be someone who supports anti-gay agenda).
Irene’s expression doesn’t change, still with the easy smile, still in her relaxed position. It doesn’t help that she is looking straight at Wendy, without saying anything, before she finally moves her gaze to the guy in talk.
True to Yeri’s words, the guy is shamelessly looking at Irene dreamily, even when Irene turns her smile into an icy glare (Wendy, who sits next to her, unfortunately, can’t see this), thus sending the poor guy scrambling to avert his gaze away.
Returning her attention back, Irene says, “No, thanks. I am out of his league.” Then proceeds to take another sip of her coffee.
Wendy is relieved, and God, she knows she shouldn’t be—but she is.
Later, when Wendy and Yeri have said their goodbyes to Irene—who chose to stay for another hour at the café—and are making their way to the dorm, Yeri abruptly says,
“Irene unnie is gay, you know.”
Wendy doesn’t splutter, isn’t even surprised. “She just turned down that guy because maybe he wasn’t her type—that doesn’t mean she likes girls.” She says, logical.
“Noooo, you stupid,” Yeri says, and Wendy is about to protest at the downgrading remark but Yeri beats her. “Don’t you notice the way she kept checking you out? I mean, as if aside from wanting to see you again isn’t clear enough? Irene unnie is into you, unnie!”
At this point Wendy just heaves a sigh. She’s pretty used to these kind of remarks, Seulgi usually says them to her, and so she knows better than to get her hopes up. Heartbreaks caused by wishful thinking are unnecessary and far more embarrassing.
“That doesn’t make me forgive you for outing me in front of a stranger without my consent,” Wendy replies instead. “Imagine if Irene unnie took it differently, I wouldn’t be able to face her anymore, and she’s technically living in the Kang’s household!”
Yeri tsks. “You’re really, really dense,” she says, and then points at the library building. “I’m meeting Saeron few more minutes, see you later?”
“Yeah, see you later,”
Yeri waves and Wendy waves back, letting her arm falls beside her body once the girl is out of her sight. She still does not think that Irene is interested in her like that, there really is no legitimate evidence nor explanation to back Yeri’s theory up. And maybe it’s better to keep it that way, because if her brain starts thinking that that is true, then Wendy wouldn’t know anymore. She wouldn’t be able to keep her cool, and boy, would that be disastrous.