Chapter 2
Jaeyi silently observes Seulgi as she takes a look around her home. After regularly selling drugs to hundreds of students for years, she’d had enough saved up for a small house in the countryside. Jaeyi hadn’t planned on using the money this way; selling had just been a game to her, a way to piss off her father a little all while making some pocket money and stashing away the rest to never be used. When she exposed him, and jumped into the river, coming back out hadn’t exactly been part of the plan either. Until she met Seulgi.
It feels weird, seeing Seulgi in the space only she has been in these past six months. To be honest, Jaeyi wasn’t sure she’d come. Why would Seulgi abandon her now peaceful home in Seoul to embark on a trip to go visit the friend with a murderous father? It made no sense. And yet, here Seulgi was, in her home, proving that she was worth the risk. Jaeyi didn’t know what she’d do if she hadn’t come, if she hadn’t proved to her that she cared as much as Jaeyi did.
“I think I’d go insane.”
“What?” Seulgi asked, turning around from looking at a framed picture of Jaeyoon on the kitchen table, surprised by the random comment.
“If you died, I think I’d go insane,” Jaeyi says, ignoring the confusion ever growing on Seulgi’s expression. “I imagined it even more, in these past few months. I thought I might never see you again, and it almost drove me insane. If something really did happen to you, I don’t know how I’d survive that.”
Jaeyi takes a few steps closer, relieved that the confusion on Seulgi’s face has been replaced by understanding.
“Nothing’s going to happen to me,” Seulgi says, taking Jaeyi’s hand in hers. Her touch feels warm, but does little to reassure Jaeyi.
“I saw the news. That my dad was released from prison.” Jaeyi sighs, because what else can she do? Cry? Scream? She worked so hard to try to get justice for her and her sister and for what? For him to be out of prison while she has to keep hiding in a remote town on the countryside? For him to be out there, where he can still hurt the people that she worked so hard to protect. Her sister. And Seulgi. Her Seulgi.
“Are you sure you’ve been safe?” she asks, and when she sees Seulgi avoid her gaze, her concern instantly doubles, now also laced with something more intense, like anger.
“What the fuck did he do now?” Jaeyi says between her teeth, trying to maintain a semblance of calm.
“Nothing,” Seulgi answers, now taking Jaeyi’s other hand as well in what seems like an attempt to calm her down. Jaeyi knows this, but how can she calm down when the person she loves might be in danger? Still, she takes a deep breath, if only because Seulgi wants it.
“It’s really nothing,” Seulgi repeats, seeking Jaeyi’s eyes with her own. “Sometimes he comes around my house to watch us, but he doesn’t do anything. I don’t think he cares about us, he just… probably expects you to come see me one day. So don’t, okay? Don’t ever come. It wouldn’t be safe.”
Jaeyi nods, biting the inside of her cheek, not knowing whether to be touched or mad that even in a situation like this, Seulgi is worried about her instead of about herself.
“If anything ever happens, though, you have to tell me, alright?” she asks, letting go of Seulgi’s hands to hold her face, make sure she can see into her eyes and tell if she’ll tell the truth.
The small “of course” she receives from Seulgi is satisfactory enough that now Jaeyi can breathe a little easier. Still, she takes a hard look at Seulgi’s expression, making sure that she means it.
Seulgi chuckles, as if knowing what’s going through her mind and says: “What? Do you think you’d be able to tell if I’m lying just by looking at my face?”
“Of course, I could.” Jaeyi scoffs, half amused, half annoyed.
“So? What’s the verdict then?”
Seulgi’s grin is even wider now, seemingly amused at Jaeyi’s annoyance. And Jaeyi can’t even be mad, because she looks beautiful like this. Seulgi smiling is a sight she’ll never get tired of.
Without her really thinking about it, one of her hands moves away from Seulgi’s cheek and her fingers ghost over Seulgi’s lips.
“You’re not lying,” she finally states.
Seulgi’s smile fades a bit, her eyes momentarily dropping to Jaeyi’s hand over her lips, and then to Jaeyi’s own lips before going back up to meet her eyes. “I didn’t know you could read minds like that. Are you psychic now too?”
“Not all minds, just yours,” Jaeyi says and smirks when she sees Seulgi take in a sharp breath when her finger grazes her bottom lip.
“Yeah? So what am I thinking right now?” Seulgi asks, and it’s not even a challenge because with the way she’s looking at her right now, Jaeyi can tell exactly what it is.
“You want to kiss me. It’s obvious.” Jaeyi says, and knows she’s right when Seulgi smiles again, but this time with a slight blush.
Still, Seulgi won’t back down. “Is that so? You sure you’re not projecting your own feelings here?” she asks, raising an eyebrow in fake skepticism.
Jaeyi rolls her eyes, and leans in until her lips are only a breath away from Seulgi’s. “Then say it. Say you don’t want it too.”
Seulgi’s cheeks get impossibly redder, and Jaeyi knows she’s already won the game when Seulgi rolls her eyes and mutters a “damn you, Yoo Jaeyi” before closing in the distance between them and taking her lips in between her own.
Jaeyi’s hands go to Seulgi’s waist and she holds her tight, trying to anchor herself, because with the way Seulgi’s kissing her, she might just lose her mind.
All she can focus on is the softness of Seulgi’s lips, her hands resting on her neck, the way her breathing becomes more and more uneven. Jaeyi barely even notices that she herself is barely breathing, too lost in the sensations coursing through her veins, setting low in her stomach. She’s always felt in control, even when all her plans seemed to fail, but now, it feels like Seulgi has stolen it from her. And she wouldn’t want it any other way, if she’s honest.
And when the softest moan slips from Seulgi’s lips, Jaeyi can’t keep her composure anymore. Her kisses become hungrier, deeper. Soon, Seulgi’s lips aren’t enough to quench her thirst anymore, so Jaeyi’s kisses start trailing down until she leaves a purple mark just below her ear, until she can feel her heartbeat beneath her lips.
“Jae- jaeyi-ah,” Seulgi whimpers, and it takes every ounce of self-control Jaeyi has to not just rip her clothes off and take her right then, right there, standing in the middle of the kitchen.
But Seulgi is weakly tapping her shoulder, so Jaeyi stops, takes a deep breath and looks up.
Seulgi doesn’t say anything, not at first, but only takes off her shirt. Jaeyi can’t help but curse under her breath, because how the fuck is she supposed to take this slow when Seulgi looks like this? Cheeks perfectly flushed, neck and shoulders exposed, only her chest covered by her bra.
It takes her every ounce of self control she has again to stop staring and instead look up into Seulgi’s eyes.
Seulgi blushes under her gaze, looks away. “Don’t look at me like that. I just thought that you’d get better… access like this.”
Jaeyi chuckles, because it’s just like Seulgi to do something bold like taking off her shirt but then getting shy about it right away.
“You’re adorable,” she says, and can’t resist booping Seulgi’s nose.
Seulgi just rolls her eyes, pretends to be annoyed, but the cute moment doesn’t last long, because Jaeyi’s gaze can’t help but keep falling lower and lower, to Seulgi’s lips, to the purple bruise now forming on her neck, to her perfectly smooth shoulders and barely concealed chest, but then she stops when her eyes fall on the scar on her stomach, the scar Jaeyi put there.
She feels a pang of guilt, because even though it’s not exactly her fault, it also kind of feels like it is. She traces the scar with her fingers and takes a deep breath, trying not to remember how it came to this.
“I’m sorry,” is all she can say.
“Don’t,” Seulgi interrupts right away, taking Jaeyi’s head in her hands and softly making her look up. “Don’t apologize. Besides,” she continues, shyly looking away, “I… don’t mind it. It reminds me of you. Of how much you cared.”
“Really?” Jaeyi asks, and Seulgi blushes to the tips of her ears, still avoiding eye contact.
“Sometimes, I even thought of it as some kind of- of mark. Like it meant I was yours.”
Jaeyi’s breath hitches, because hearing those words from Seulgi’s mouth, it makes that wave of arousal come crashing back on her all at once. It meant I was yours.
But she doesn’t say anything and instead just kneels and presses the softest kiss on Seulgi’s scar, smiling when she feels Seulgi inhale sharply. So, she continues, this time pressing open mouthed kisses all over the length of the scar, reveling in the way Seulgi’s stomach rises and falls as her breathing become quicker and quicker.
“Jaeyi,” Seulgi whispers, as if unable to use her full voice right now.
“Yeah?”
“Take me to your bedroom. Now.”
Jaeyi doesn’t need to be told twice.