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When Gyuri is thirty-four years old, she meets the love of her life at a noraebang in Hongdae.
One moment, she’s texting Nicole, who is visiting family in America and sadly missing the copious amounts of alcohol Youngji is providing on her birthday. The next, she notices the door open and glances up to see a woman enter the room and be immediately assaulted by Choi Hyojung’s attempt at rapping a BTS song.
She looks down instinctively when her phone vibrates with a new text, then looks up again and promptly forgets about Nicole and Hyojung and anyone and anything that isn’t the woman making her way towards Youngji with a small smile, her eyes curving into crescents as she hugs her close. Gyuri would kill an actual human being to be in Youngji’s place right now.
Jiyoung, who predictably has stayed glued to Youngji’s side the entire evening, says something as soon as Gyuri approaches them. Gyuri has no idea what it could be, given that her eyes don’t seem capable of straying too far from the woman, now sitting next to Mijoo. She grabs Youngji’s arm.
“Youngji-yah,” she whisper-shouts, fighting to be heard over Hyojung, now joined by Youngji’s sister and singing SNSD. “You need to introduce us!”
Youngji frowns in confusion. Jiyoung leans in close, too interested.“What?”
“You need to introduce us!” She inclines her head in the direction of the woman and Mijoo, begging Youngji to catch the hint. She chances another look, immediately overcome with a full-body shiver when she meets her eyes from across the room. Is that what normal people feel like when Gyuri walks into a room? God. She doesn’t envy them.
Youngji and Jiyoung follow her line of sight, and she gets to watch realization settle over them both. The impish smile that takes over Jiyoung’s face is anything but good news. Youngji’s eyes widen, her mouth dropping, and then she’s—
—grabbing Gyuri’s arm and dragging her out of the room. What the fuck.
“What the fuck?” She asks aloud, feeling disoriented now that she can hear her own thoughts again.
“Unnie.” Youngji holds both of her hands, pulling them close like what she’s about to tell Gyuri is of the utmost importance. She looks a little frantic. “Seulgi’s a sensitive soul. She doesn’t do hook-ups.”
Gyuri snatches her hands back, offended. She narrows her eyes. “I can do sensitive. I can commit.” And then, as she digests more of the information: “Seulgi.” She lets her arms drop by her side. Seulgi. What a beautiful, wonderful name. Of course, Seulgi’s a Seulgi; suddenly, Gyuri cannot picture her as anything else.
Youngji whines in despair. She seems at least a little bit sick at the possibility of not immediately catering to Gyuri’s wishes, which is reassuring. “No, you don’t understand. She even works with children!”
“Fantastic, then she’s probably already sick of them and won’t want us to have one of our own.”
Youngji opens her mouth, expression so anguished it’d be almost funny if it wasn’t keeping Gyuri from her future wife, and is promptly cut off by the door opening next to them and the sound of karaoke spilling out along with Jiyoung. My God, is that Hyojung still singing?
“What’s going on here?” Jiyoung looks between them both, a hand immediately traveling to Youngji’s waist like they’re opposing magnets. She then shifts closer so that the entirety of her side is touching Youngji’s.
It used to make Gyuri sick, their blatant displays of affection. But she understands now. She wants to touch the sliver of skin left on display by Seulgi’s cropped shirt so badly she might be going mildly insane with it.
“Jiyoungie. Help me,” Youngji begs. “I can’t see Seulgi cry in that very quiet way of hers after being ghosted by Gyuri unnie and seeing her with another woman, I just can’t do it. We can’t let this happen.”
“Who said anything about ghosting?” Gyuri has a beating heart. She just happens to get bored very easily and get involved with people who never seem to get the hint. It won’t happen with Seulgi, though. Gyuri is sure of it. “Tell your girlfriend that if she won’t introduce me to her friend then I’ll do it myself.”
“My girlfriend is right here,” Jiyoung says, leveling her with a familiar ‘don’t be mean to Youngji’ look. Gyuri has been getting fewer of these as the years go by. She turns to Youngji. “You don’t know if that’s going to happen, though. We might be about to witness a love story in real time.”
Gyuri’s sister is the most amazing person on the planet. “Yes, exactly! You guys are always talking about destiny, how do you not see what’s happening here?”
“You always make fun of us when we say we were destined to be together!” Youngji says, indignant. “Now all of a sudden you believe in it?”
“I do believe you were destined to meet my sister,” Gyuri says, “if only so we could meet, and you could introduce me to Seulgi right now.” Jiyoung gasps in outrage. “Yes, I know about the matching moles and the opposite names and the working in the same position at the same company a year apart, you don’t need to remind me.”
“Ah unnie, seriously…” Youngji cards a hand through her hair, tilts her head backwards as if looking for guidance. “You know what. Fine, I’ll do it. But if you hurt Seulgi then I swear I’ll— I swear I will—”
Gyuri raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. “You’ll do what?”
Youngji pouts, hugs Jiyoung around the waist. “I’ll be sad and then your sister will be devastated because she can’t stand seeing me like that?” Jiyoung pats her shoulder, nodding in agreement.
“Fine by me,” Gyuri shrugs. “Lead the way.”
It’s actually not fine, is the thing Gyuri discovers as Youngji and Jiyoung disentangle just enough to go back into the karaoke room. Because now Youngji is taking Gyuri to meet the woman who is going to change her life forever and she feels butterflies rattling in her stomach like a fucking teenager.
Gyuri doesn’t get nervous meeting new people. Gyuri definitely doesn’t get nervous meeting pretty people, because well, look at her. She’s used to being the hottest person in any room. But as she walks closer, surrounded by Hyojung’s voice singing a ballad, she sees that Seulgi has monolids, and fucking abs, and thin wrists and an even smaller waist and she laughs with her whole body at whatever Mijoo is saying, clapping her hands and everything.
Seulgi still has a giant grin on her face when they reach her, cheeks bunched up adorably as she looks up at Youngji and then at Gyuri, her smile smoothing out in an instant. Gyuri already misses it terribly.
“Seulgi-yah,” Youngji shouts, “this is Gyuri unnie, Jiyoung’s older sister.”
Seulgi blinks at her, adorably confused. She smiles and nods, seemingly in spite of herself, so polite it freaking hurts. Everything about Seulgi is hurting Gyuri in the best way possible. She feels about to explode.
“Nice to meet you, Gyuri-ssi!” And then, before Gyuri has the chance to return the sentiment, “do you want to sit?”
A quick glance at Mijoo tells her this wasn’t a planned invitation. Gyuri is nothing if not an achiever, and only a fool would waste a chance this golden. She nods at Mijoo in acknowledgment, immediately focusing back on Seulgi. If she turns and inclines her legs just so, she can almost feel the brush of Seulgi’s skin on her thigh.
“I didn’t know Youngji had such pretty friends.” She ignores the offended 'yah!' Mijoo lets out in response, too busy drinking in all the minute contractions of Seulgi’s facial muscles at the compliment. The flashing, colorful lights make it impossible to tell, but Gyuri would bet anything that Seulgi’s blushing. She’d bet her beating heart on it. “It’s nice to meet you too.”
Seulgi runs her fingers over a strand of hair that’s already tucked behind her ear. “Oh, come on. How can you say this?”
Gyuri tilts her head to the side. Seulgi doesn’t seem offended, but although it’s exceedingly rare, Gyuri has been wrong before. “What do you mean?” She vaguely notices Mijoo is nowhere to be seen, but can’t bring herself to feel sorry for it.
“I mean—” Seulgi splutters, gesticulates vaguely at Gyuri’s everything. “You look like that,” she finishes, mouth turned in a small pout, cringing. Gyuri never knew it was possible to want to bite someone’s cheek and sit on their face at the same time.
“If you don’t have any mirrors in your house I’d be glad to let you see the ones in my apartment.”
Way too much, way too soon, and yet Gyuri can’t bring herself to regret it as Seulgi practically tries hiding into herself. She covers her face with her hands, lets out a little squeal that goes straight to Gyuri’s insides and turns her organs into pure Seulgi-adoring goo. Seulgi lowers a hand to peek at Gyuri, gaze imploring.
“You can’t just say stuff like that. Please, Gyuri-ssi.”
“You can call me unnie.”
“Unnie,” Seulgi whines cutely, the hottest thing Gyuri has ever heard. That sound travels straight between her legs and settles so deeply into the grey matter of her brain she’ll be haunted by it in the foreseeable future, but Gyuri can’t scare her anymore than she already has. Gyuri is a woman on a mission.
“Forget I said that.” She almost adds, 'unless you’re into the offer', but decides to heed Youngji’s advice. “I just want to get to know you better. I promise.”
“But why me? We don’t even know each other.”
“Isn’t that the point of getting to know someone better?” Gyuri smiles to take the edge off. Hyojung has upgraded to foreign songs, now, in what Gyuri is pretty sure is Mariah Carey. She has to lean in close to Seulgi to be heard, and definitely does not miss the way Seulgi’s eyes dip to her cleavage. Gyuri resists the urge to squeeze her arms together like a teenager trying to take a racy picture for the first time. “I just saw you and thought—”
I just saw you and thought about how my sister met the woman her shitty former employers hired after firing her, and how they found out they’re the same age and have the same sense of humor and matching names, and even fucking identical moles on their arms and on their collarbone. And they keep saying it was destiny, and even though I always call bullshit I’ve never seen my sister laugh so hard or look at someone so fondly as she does with Youngji, and tonight you crossed the threshold with your cool hair and clothes and smiled so cutely in contrast. And I thought that I’ve always been able to get anyone I want but no one has made me wish I could learn their name and see their moles and find out what makes them laugh so hard they snort, until I saw you.
“You thought…?” Seulgi prompts.
“I think,” Gyuri corrects herself. “That you seem interesting, and you’re obviously beautiful, and if you’re Youngji’s friend then that automatically means you’re a good person.”
“Oh,” Seulgi lets out, so soft Gyuri sees it rather than hears it. She bites her lip, but Gyuri can’t miss how it curls ever so slightly. “I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s okay,” Gyuri says gently, feeling far more patient than she ever has. “I can ask you again later, as long as I know you’re going to say yes.” She’ll wait all night long, all week long if she has to. Gyuri will be years older and she won’t have forgotten how Seulgi finally allows a smile to bloom on her face, wondrous, beautiful.
“Ask me now.” Seulgi says, and Gyuri swears not even Hyojung’s rendition of My Heart Will Go On can hide the loud, happy thumping of her heart as she does.