Chapter Text

5 Times Seulgi Wanted to Kiss Jaeyi + 1 Time She Did

1 : the rooftop

The thing about hiding was that Seulgi was very good at it.

She'd had years of practice.

Stay small. Stay quiet. Don't let them find you.

She'd made it a science — the angles of a classroom that kept her out of sight, the timing of hallway traffic, which stairwells no one used. She knew how to fold herself into the negative space of a room and wait until the danger passed.

She did not know what to do when the danger found her anyway.

Breathe, she told herself. It's over. You're fine. Breathe.

But her body hadn't gotten the message yet. Her hands were pressed to her ears though there was nothing to block out. Her chest wouldn't open. The rooftop was cold and exposed and the city spread out below her like a reminder that she was very small and very alone and the night was very large.

She'd been caught. Someone had seen her.

Being seen, her body remembered, was how it started.

It always started with being seen.

The memories didn't come in order. They never did. They came in textures — the cold floor, the smell of smoke, a sound she couldn't name, the feeling of being held down by something she still couldn't fully look at. A pain she'd learned to locate with clinical precision: chest, left side, permanent.

She pressed her fingers harder against her ears.

Stop. You're at Chaehwa now. You're fine. Stop.

It was only her second day and she was already back to a rooftop. Bullied, targeted, intimidated. These things apparently never change. But failing so catastrophically on her first test? She didn't prepare for that. No one prepared her for that, and they never would. She was back to being the stinky orphan girl with no future.

Then the rain came.

Or maybe the rain had already been there. Maybe she'd just started feeling it — cold on her arms, on the back of her neck, soaking through the cap she'd been given by a girl she barely knew, who had looked at Seulgi's pleading eyes in that elevator and decided, without asking, to keep her safe.

Seulgi had spent the last twenty minutes trying not to think about that.

She didn't know what to do with it. Kindness with no price tag attached. Kindness so quick and certain it hadn't even looked like a decision — more like a reflex. She's in trouble. I'll manage it. Like Seulgi was something worth caring for.

Seulgi had spent the last twenty minutes trying not to think about how she rejected that same kindness earlier that day. How she wanted to welcome the hug, and the shirt, but she just couldn't. She just didn't want to be played with, not on her second day, not so soon. Not by a stranger.

She's not coming back, Seulgi thought, with the flat certainty of someone who has thought this many times before. Nobody comes back. You knew that. You shouldn't have been rude to her. You shouldn't have waited.

The rooftop door opened.

She didn't look up at first. She heard footsteps, unhurried. Then a shadow fell over her, and something lifted — a hand, reaching for the cap on her head, slowly, pulling it away.

Seulgi looked up.

Yoo Jaeyi stood over her, and Seulgi didn't have a word for what she saw. Not pity. Pity she would have recognized. This was something quieter. Something almost careful. And Jaeyi extended her hand.

Seulgi looked at it for a moment that stretched. The rain stopped.

It did not stop. Seulgi knew it did not stop — she could feel the cold of it still on her skin, her clothes still damp, the city still grey and wet below them. But something shifted in the quality of the air. Something that had been pressing down on her chest pulled back, just slightly, and she could see the sky again: the moon, round and full and very bright, like it had been there the whole time, waiting.

"Get up," Jaeyi said. "Come with me."

"Where," Seulgi said.

Jaeyi shrugged. One shoulder. Unbothered.

You shouldn't, something in her said. You don't know her. You don't trust her. You don't know what she wants from you.

But Jaeyi's hand didn't move. Didn't retract. Just stayed there, open, patient, like it had all the time in the world.

Seulgi took her hand.

She didn't think about it. She just did it — fingers closing around Jaeyi's, letting herself be pulled upright, legs unsteady beneath her. Jaeyi's grip was warm and didn't loosen.

Seulgi wondered if she could live in that warmth forever.

They stood there for a second, eye to eye.

Seulgi didn't look away.

She didn't know what she was feeling. It was too large and too new to name and she was still too overwhelmed to think clearly. But it was something like — air. Like the first breath after holding it too long.

Like Jaeyi was breathing air into her lungs. And for a split second, Seulgi wanted to feel Jaeyi with every inhale.

"We'll have to take the stairs so they don't see you," Jaeyi said, practical again, already turning. "Are you okay with that?"

Seulgi nodded.

She wasn't alone.

Jaeyi had come back.

Going down the stairs, Seulgi stayed close — close enough that if Jaeyi stopped she'd run into her. Not on purpose. Or maybe a little on purpose.

The night air came up through the stairwell, cold and clean, and Seulgi breathed it in.

She was not alone.

2 : the karaoke

Seulgi waited.

She was good at a lot of things. Waiting was not one of them. People forgot her easily, so waiting was pointless. It meant standing still while time passed, which meant time to think, which meant arriving at conclusions she'd rather not reach.

She got caught up on something.

She pushed the thought down. It was too early to think that. She'd only been standing here for five minutes.

She's not coming.

Seven minutes.

She forgot already.

Ten.

She hated waiting.

The rain started lightly, then committed. Seulgi looked at the sky with the flat expression of someone whose day had already asked a lot of her, and then ducked into the nearest karaoke shop before her new uniform got wet.

She paid for an hour she hadn't planned on spending and told herself this was fine. She was fine. Jaeyi was probably just late. Probably had a reason. Probably wasn't the kind of person who said meet me here and then didn't show up.

Right?

She picked a song she knew without thinking — slow, minor key, the kind of thing she'd listened to during the worst parts of the last few years. Lucid Fall understood something about being alone in a room and still having to keep going. Seulgi had always found that useful.

The track started and she let herself think about the day instead. About Jaeyi's hand in the air: I nominate Woo Seulgi for class president. Delivered before Seulgi had even processed the question, before she'd had a chance to say no or look surprised or do any of the twelve things she would have done if she'd been warned. Just — her. Because Jaeyi had seen the angle and taken it and apparently decided Seulgi should have it too.

It was terrifying, honestly. Not the presidency — she could handle that. The other thing. The way Jaeyi had done it without asking, like it was obvious. Like keeping Seulgi stable at Chaehwa was something she'd already decided to do, and the class election was just logistics.

Bulletproofing, some part of Seulgi's brain supplied. She's bulletproofing me.

She sang the next line and tried not to think about what that meant. About why it made her feel warm and also slightly panicked and also — underneath that — dangerously close to believing it.

She was mid-verse when the booth door opened.

Jaeyi walked in like she'd been expected.

She picked up the second mic from the stand with both hands, and came in on the next line without missing a beat.

Seulgi's voice cut out briefly. She knows this song?

Jaeyi sang it well. Of course she did. She did everything well, it was beginning to feel personal.

"You know this song too," Seulgi managed, when the verse ended.

"I have all of Lucid Fall and Misoni albums."

"You're a true fan."

Jaeyi looked at her — and said, simply: "The song sounds nicer in your voice."

Seulgi blinked. What.

Then Jaeyi leaned in, close enough that her mouth was almost at Seulgi's ear, and said: "I love your voice. It's sweet."

And went back to the song. Mic up. Like she hadn't just said that.

What.

The music continued. Seulgi continued. She was not sure how, exactly — muscle memory, probably, because her brain had vacated entirely. There was just the warmth of where Jaeyi's breath had been near her ear, and the word sweet, and the very specific and newly arrived thought that she wanted—

No.

Absolutely not.

She faced the screen with great determination.

The lyrics blurred slightly.

She blinked them back into focus.

Jaeyi said something and Seulgi laughed and then couldn't remember what either of them had said. She started picking songs she didn't know the words to so she'd have to look at the screen. This was strategic. This was fine.

It helped less than she'd hoped, because Jaeyi kept leaning close to say things. You have good taste in music. Right next to her ear. You're so funny. Close enough that Seulgi could smell her perfume. You're going to be a great class president. Warm, certain, like it wasn't even a compliment, just a fact she was sharing.

You looked so cool when you made Kyung apologize.

Seulgi stared at the screen.

Her face was doing something she couldn't fully control.

She had been complimented before. Teachers, occasionally, when she ranked first. The nuns at the orphanage, same reason. It had always felt like information — filed, noted, moved past. Useful data about her own performance.

This was not that.

This was Jaeyi two inches from her ear telling her she was sweet and funny and cool, like she'd been keeping notes. Like she'd been watching. And Seulgi, who had spent years learning to be invisible, who had made a science of not taking up space, could feel herself wanting — wanting badly — to be seen like this.

By her, specifically.

Only by her.

She picked another song. Focused on the screen. Reminded herself that the hour would end eventually, that she was capable of basic self-regulation, that she was Woo Seulgi and she had survived significantly harder things than this.

Across the booth, Jaeyi laughed at something and threw her head back, and Seulgi looked at her mouth for half a second and then looked immediately, firmly away.

The song played.

Seulgi thought: she didn't forget me.

Then she thought, helplessly: I'm in so much trouble.

3 : the sleepover

Jaeyi took her hand.

Seulgi had just finished telling her the most private story of her life — the school trip, the headcount, the hours alone in a strange city — and Jaeyi had listened without performing it. No exaggerated sympathy. No immediate pivot to herself. Just: that wasn't your fault. Thank you for telling me.

And then, almost immediately, she'd confessed about the Lucid Fall albums.

Seulgi had laughed. She hadn't expected to. It came out before she could stop it — genuine and slightly watery — and Jaeyi had laughed too, and somehow that was enough to make the room feel less fragile.

She stayed, Seulgi thought, for the second time. She keeps staying.

She was still thinking about that when Jaeyi said "should we get ready for bed?" and started unbuttoning her vest like the conversation was over and everything was fine and they were just two normal people at a completely normal sleepover.

Seulgi stayed very still.

Jaeyi's vest came off.

Then she stood up — directly in front of Seulgi, which was an interesting position choice — and started on her shirt. Unhurried. Hooded eyes glancing down at Seulgi like this was completely ordinary.

It was not.

Look away, Seulgi told herself. Look away, look away, look—

The shirt came off.

Seulgi looked away. Very quickly. At the calendar on the bedside desk, specifically, which suddenly seemed extremely interesting. Jaeyi was a cross-off-the-days kind of girl. So methodical. So organized. Seulgi had a lot of thoughts about that, she was thinking about it very hard, she was completely focused on the calendar and absolutely nothing else.

She was internally combusting.

Jaeyi moved away from the bed, apparently unbothered by all of this, and said: "I should show you around the room."

She was still not wearing a shirt.

Seulgi followed her.

"This is the bathroom," Jaeyi opened the door of the suite. It was enormous.

Seulgi had grown up in an orphanage. Bathrooms were communal and practical, spacious for function, not luxury. In the apartment where she lived with her stepmom, the bathroom and the kitchen were in conversation with each other, spatially speaking. But this bathroom had a bathtub — wide and deep, standing on its own in the corner like a centerpiece, like it had opinions about the room.

"Do you use it often?" Seulgi asked, before she could think about why she was asking.

"The bathtub? Only on special occasions."

A beat.

"Do you want to try it?"

Seulgi's brain made a sound like a dial-up connection.

"Oh — there's no need—"

"I can run a bath with you," Jaeyi said. Not for. With.

"That's — I'm fine — the shower is completely—"

Jaeyi smiled and moved on.

Seulgi stood in the bathroom doorway for one extra second, looked at the bathtub again with the detached expression of someone filing information she would absolutely not be thinking about later, and followed her to the closet.

Jaeyi pulled out two sets of pyjamas — one for herself, one folded and handed directly to Seulgi, like she'd already decided which one she'd want.

"I'm going to the bathroom, let you finish changing—" Seulgi said immediately, ready to sprint out of Jaeyi's orbit.

The words came out faster than intended. She had her hands on the pyjamas. Jaeyi still had her hands on the pyjamas.

Neither of them let go.

Seulgi looked up.

This was a mistake.

She'd been careful during the karaoke — strategic song selection, screen-gazing, the whole operation — specifically to avoid this. The up-close cataloguing of Jaeyi's face that her brain kept trying to conduct without her permission. But there was nowhere to look here. They were just standing in front of each other in a walk-in closet (it was always a closet) and Jaeyi wasn't moving and Seulgi's eyes were doing the thing anyway.

The line of her jaw. The arch of her brows. The mole under her left eye, another one below her lip.

Her lips.

Stop.

She was getting lost. She could feel herself getting lost. It was like the karaoke but closer, warmer, no screen to hide behind, no song to follow. Just Jaeyi's face two feet from hers and the soft weight of the pyjamas between them and—

Jaeyi's mouth curved into a smirk.

"You can stay, if you prefer," she said. "I don't mind."

She winked.

And let go.

Seulgi turned and walked to the bathroom with great dignity.

She closed the door. Leaned against it. Pressed the cool pyjamas to her face.

She glared at the bathtub from across the room. The bathtub, which had done nothing wrong.

It wasn't about the bathtub.

She knew exactly what it was about. That was the problem.

4 : the rooftop (again)

She took the stairs.

Jaeyi had told her which ones, and Seulgi had followed the instructions without questioning, the way she always followed Jaeyi's instructions, the way she had from the very first night when a hand had appeared out of the rain and she'd taken it without knowing why.

Get up. Come with me.

She knew why now.

You won't reject my kindness again, will you? Because I respect you.

She pushed through the rooftop door and found Jaeyi exactly where she'd been told she would be — at the parapet, back turned, staring out at the city like she owned it too.

Seulgi had spent the walk up rehearsing this. She had a plan. She had terms.

She placed the empty sample cup on the parapet.

She knelt.

Jaeyi looked down at her from the parapet and Seulgi looked up and said everything she'd rehearsed — the uniform, the workbook, the midterms. The lawsuit settlement.

"I forgot my place and acted out. I'll get you whatever you want." She'd thought it would feel worse than this. The surrender. The admission that Jaeyi had been three steps ahead the whole time.

It mostly just felt true.

"What do you want, Seulgi?" Jaeyi asked like that was the thing that matters.

"My safety." She prostrated even more. There was no dignity left to protect. Jaeyi knew most of it already.

"You don't get it, Jaeyi. How I survived as an outcast and a victim of bullying. Studying is my only way out. Good grades are my only protection and shield."

She looked at Jaeyi again, resolute, firm, not begging like she thought she would.

"The physical checkup results. I need them to be clear."

Jaeyi was quiet for a moment.

Then she stepped down from the parapet and extended her hand.

"Keeping you safe..." Jaeyi said. "It's what I did."

Seulgi felt it before she understood it — the specific quality of that gesture, the shape of it, familiar in her bones. She took Jaeyi's hand and let herself be pulled upright and stood in the cold air of the rooftop thinking: again. She's doing it again. Every time Seulgi ends up on the ground, Jaeyi finds her there and reaches down. Breathing air into her lungs.

Then she did something Seulgi hadn't anticipated.

She crouched down.

Right there, in front of her, and brushed the dust from Seulgi's knees with careful hands. Seulgi looked down at the top of Jaeyi's head and felt something shift in the architecture of the moment — something quiet and irreversible. She was above Jaeyi. Not because Seulgi had earned it or fought for it but because Jaeyi had decided she should be there.

"And it's what I'm about to do," she stood, handed Seulgi the cup.

Relief moved through Seulgi so fast it left her slightly lightheaded. She barely heard the next part — something about pills, about the rankings, Jaeyi's voice doing the thing where it was light on the surface and something else underneath.

"Woo Seulgi. Yoo Jaeyi. Our names side by side." Left hand, right hand, the board made physical. "I wouldn't have liked it if it were anyone else. I liked it because it was you."

Seulgi grabbed her wrist before Jaeyi could walk away.

"Tell me what you promised."

She held it a moment longer than necessary, then let go.

Jaeyi explained. Not everything — Seulgi understood there were layers she wasn't being handed yet — but enough. Her father. The files. The shape of how much Jaeyi actually knew and how long she'd known it. Seulgi listened and didn't say what she was thinking. She was tired of being a file in someone else's hands and she didn't trust Jaeyi quite yet. But this was enough for now.

"About what you can do for me..." Jaeyi stepped close.

"I'll contemplate that," like she had all the time in the world. Like Seulgi's entire future wasn't being balanced somewhere between them.

And she reached for Seulgi's neck.

The scarf was small and pink and Seulgi hadn't noticed she was holding it. Jaeyi looped it carefully.

Seulgi became aware of Jaeyi's hands. The proximity of her face. The smell of her.

"It's cold in the checkup center. Keep this on."

Seulgi stood still and let Jaeyi's fingers work close to her throat, unhurried. Taking care, without fanfare, without asking for anything back.

She had been waiting her whole life for someone who stayed. She hadn't expected it to look like this.

Seulgi wanted to kiss her.

Not as a flash or a flinch — not in the darkness of a karaoke booth or under the dizzy spell of a bathtub she hadn't used. Slower than that. Certain. The kind of wanting that had put down roots without asking permission.

Jaeyi smoothed the scarf and then ran her hands against Seulgi's shoulders. Looked at her.

"Congrats on ranking first." And walked away.

Seulgi's hand came up on its own. Fingers finding the scarf at her throat.

It was still warm.

She stood there a moment longer, hand at her neck, and didn't move.

5 : the ballpit

Seulgi left her backpack neatly at the edge, secured her cat ears, and jumped.

The pool swallowed her whole.

She hadn't expected that — the depth of it, the way the plastic balls closed over her head like water, vision gone, sound muffled, one hand pushing upward on instinct toward a surface she couldn't see. She should have panicked. She couldn't swim, had never learned, had spent most of her life treating bodies of water with the careful respect of someone who knew their own limits.

She didn't panic. She tried to convince herself it was because this wasn't water. She couldn't drown.

But somewhere above her, Jaeyi was there. She knew it the way she knew things that had stopped requiring thought — the way she knew which stairwell to take, which hand to reach for in the dark.

She'll find me.

"Hey — take my hand!"

She found her.

Seulgi broke the surface laughing, slightly breathless, Jaeyi's grip already firm around her wrist. The light came back. The noise came back. Jaeyi's face came back — wide-eyed, relieved, already laughing it off.

"Are you alright?"

"Why is it so deep?"

Jaeyi pulled her forward. "Come with me—"

She stumbled.

It happened fast — Jaeyi's foot catching on something, her balance going, and then they were both going down, and Seulgi had just enough time to register oh before she landed.

On Jaeyi.

For a moment she was just aware of warmth. Jaeyi's arms had come up reflexively, catching her, and Seulgi's hands had found purchase somewhere — shoulder, side, she wasn't entirely sure — and Jaeyi was warm, actually warm, radiating heat through the thin fabric of her shirt in a way that short-circuited something in Seulgi's brain entirely.

"Are you okay?" she managed.

Jaeyi looked up at her.

The plastic balls had settled around them, pastel and ridiculous, up to their torsos like the world had been replaced with something softer. The noise of the fair continued somewhere far away. Neither of them moved.

Seulgi looked at her face — really looked, the way she'd been trying not to do since the karaoke, since the sleepover, since every moment she'd spent not looking — and thought, with sudden and total clarity: her smile is so pretty.

Then: I should kiss her.

A decision, almost.

She felt Jaeyi shift beneath her. Slow. Deliberate. The eye contact held, unbroken, and Jaeyi was moving closer with the same attention she gave things she considered important, and Seulgi felt the words she'd been rehearsing since the rooftop — I like you, we ranked first together and I liked it because it was you, because I like you — rise into her throat and get completely, catastrophically stuck there.

She started moving back without meaning to. Not away — she didn't want away. Just back, the way you braced for something large, something that might undo you if it arrived too fast. Her eyes never left Jaeyi's.

She's seeing me, some part of her registered. She's actually seeing me.

The smirk arrived at the corner of Jaeyi's mouth — the one that meant she knew exactly what she was doing — and then a ball hit Seulgi square in the face.

She fell back in surprise, being engulfed by the ballpit one more time.

Jaeyi was already laughing.

The moment broke like a soap bubble — instant, total, leaving nothing behind but air and the slightly absurd reality of the ballpit and Jaeyi's delighted expression and Seulgi throwing more balls back, without aiming.

Jaeyi shrieked.

They played for several minutes — grabbing, dodging, laughing too loudly, occasionally crashing into each other and not entirely by accident. It was light and ridiculous and exactly what it was, and Seulgi let herself have it.

But underneath the laughter, small and persistent: she was right there.

Next time, she thought. You know the words. Say it, then you can kiss her.

+1 : the fireworks

Seulgi flopped onto the bench like she'd survived a war.

"I've never had this much fun before," she moaned, stretching out, kicking her shoes halfway off.

Everything hurt. Everything was amazing. She didn't want this moment to end.

That was new — not the wanting, but the specific shape of the fear underneath it. She had spent her whole life learning not to need things she couldn't keep. Losing people had always felt like weather: cold, inevitable, something you endured until it passed.

But Jaeyi had somehow become the air. And the thought of her standing up and walking away felt, for the first time, like something Seulgi couldn't just survive through.

She was not ready for that.

"Are your feet cold?" Jaeyi asked, already half-turned away. "I'll go buy you socks."

Seulgi's hand shot out.

It happened before she'd decided anything — fingers closing around Jaeyi's wrist, holding on. She stared at her own hand for a moment with the mild horror of someone who had just done something that couldn't be undone.

Jaeyi went still.

So did Seulgi.

Well, she thought. Here we are.

"If I'm being honest," Seulgi started carefully, "I still don't trust you."

Jaeyi's face tightened and Seulgi almost took it back.

"But," she rushed, "I'm still glad... that we both ranked first."

Seulgi had rehearsed it a dozen times in her head that day. She wanted to say it, but the timing didn't seem right. It still didn't.

She forced herself not to look away, though. This was important. This was her trying. She would not wait for the perfect time anymore. She hated waiting.

Jaeyi's expression softened. She didn't tease or try to pull away.

She just stayed.

Seulgi's heart did something embarrassing. She dropped her gaze first, finally catching up with her own words, fingers loosening.

"I wouldn't have felt that way if it were someone else," she added quickly, staring at her shoes.

There.

It was out.

Jaeyi laughed quietly. Seulgi looked up and found her still there, still looking, and something loosened in her chest that had been held tight since their names were put side-by-side on the board that morning.

Seulgi finished putting her shoes on.

"Wanna watch the fireworks? The show is about to start." Jaeyi extended her hand.

A beat.

"I wanted to watch it with you," she added. "It's nicer. With you."

She said it simply, like a fact she'd already made peace with.

Seulgi stared at her hand for a second too long.

Jaeyi's expression was steady. Calm. She'd just said something that made Seulgi's pulse trip over itself and she was standing there like she'd commented on the weather.

Seulgi had never figured out how to prepare for that.

She took her hand.

Jaeyi pulled her off the bench. Seulgi's legs were still a little unsteady.

Jaeyi's grip was warm. Steady.

As they walked, Jaeyi swung their joined hands slightly, absentminded and unselfconscious, like this — them — was already something real.

Seulgi didn't ask where they were going. She didn't need to.

By the time they reached the field stands, the noise had softened into something distant, and the sky had begun to glow.

They sat side by side, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. The fireworks were enormous.

"Look," Jaeyi said, pointing. "It's huge."

A white firework bloomed across the sky.

"I've never seen anything like it," Seulgi whispered.

Her face felt warm, lit by color and movement, caught in a slow, endless dance of light.

"It's beautiful," she muttered. Not like the meek holidays and festivals from her hometown, she wanted to say. She didn't miss them much anyway — too busy studying, too busy running around the drug clinics. Life wasn't supposed to have color back then.

When she turned, Jaeyi was already looking at her.

Seulgi looked back. She was done looking away.

She noticed Jaeyi fidgeting, hands at her sides, legs swinging lightly. She let her own hand sit on top of Jaeyi's.

Jaeyi's other hand came up slowly, brushing the hair from Seulgi's face. Like she was handling something she didn't want to startle.

Seulgi's pulse was everywhere at once.

More fireworks exploded. People cheered somewhere far away.

Jaeyi shifted closer.

A phone buzzed somewhere between them. Neither of them looked.

"Seulgi-ah..." Jaeyi's voice was small and expectant.

Seulgi swallowed.

Jaeyi's gaze flickered down — just briefly — to Seulgi's mouth.

That was all it took.

Seulgi exhaled.

Then leaned in.

Their lips met in the middle.

Soft.

Careful.

But deliberate.

Seulgi's free hand slid up, fingers wrapping around Jaeyi's wrist — keeping her there, keeping her hand against her face. The other threaded into Jaeyi's fingers, pulling her closer.

The smell of Jaeyi's perfume was everywhere. She pressed in, and the fireworks cracked open overhead, white and gold spilling across the sky, but Seulgi didn't look.

When they pulled back, it was because they were both smiling too much and breathing too little. The joy was just too much to keep going.

Jaeyi was staring at her like she'd just seen something impossible.

Seulgi felt dizzy. Brave. She wanted to chase Jaeyi's lips, feel lost in them again.

The phone buzzed again, interrupting Seulgi's haze. Why Jaeyi had to be so popular?

"I should probably take this," Jaeyi said reluctantly, eyes apologetic.

Seulgi leaned back and let her go, still warm, still slightly breathless.

She didn't mind waiting this time.