Series: chapter 2 - Winter
Word count: 896
AU: High school, College/University, Modern setting
Author: @fated_addiction on AO3
Additional information: romance, friendship, adulthood, growing pains
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her bedsheets are blue.
or, wendy, irene, and the pains of growing up together.
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-
her bedsheets are blue.
"i can't believe your mother sent me to visit you with a new ironing board," wendy mutters.
irene blushes. angrily? maybe. but she's too distracted by the vision of wendy standing in the middle of her dorm room.
"i needed one?" irene tries to say. bites her lip and drops into seulgi's bed. mostly, it's because she's not here. "and besides, you don't need an excuse to come and visit me... you know that, right?"
wendy rolls her eyes. drops into irene's bed in one grand, sweeping motion. even drops back into her pillows. it's been month, irene thinks. two friends, two different universities. two different people. wendy even seems larger than life. big, wide eyes. her shoulders set back with confident. a fixed smile on her face that is equal parts amused and mysterious. for irene, she's beautiful. and complicated. complicated, if anything, because she hasn't thought like this in awhile.
and wendy is now in her bed.
"how are classes?"
irene blinks. "what?"
"school?" wendy turns into her side. her hair spills across irene's pillow. by now, her sheets smell like her. "you know, classes? part of paving your path to the presidency. or social justice. or creating an ironing board that will iron clothes itself."
"shut up," she mutters. irene feels her face flush. "i find it relaxing."
"i know."
it's a weird reality: devastating, going from spending almost every day together to accidental holidays. she has been thinking about wendy a lot. introduces her through pictures. this is seungwan-ah. we were best friends in high school. she's in university too - for singing and speaking, like, fifty languages. because that's partially true. but having wendy here is disorienting enough to push at her. i miss you, she wants to say. it's weird just seeing you. it's weirder knowing you're within reach.
but irene doesn't. irene is not like wendy. words aren't easy for her; she's pragmatic.
"my mom didn't say she saw you," she murmurs, and shifts to sit on her bed too. she feels her nerves start unravel. "or that she was sending you," she adds. her face feels hot and wendy laughs. "i feel like she'd tell me."
wendy shrugs. "we don't live that far apart, joohyunniee," she drawls. arches into turning onto her back.
there is a long, awkward pause. until irene cannot help herself. she reaches forwards. drags her fingers into wendy's face. running them across her cheek, along her jaw. only to try and pull herself closer. or remember. or to not feel guilty about being bad at this.
"you look tired," she punctuates, "seung-wan-ah."
"i'm tired."
it's like a whole new person. wendy's eyes are bright and wide. her smile is strange, not sullen but serious enough to send butterflies into irene's stomach. she hasn't felt like this in a long time. it's different when it's just the two of them. irene bites at her lip. swallows. then pushes at wendy's bangs. maybe to see her eyes. maybe not to.
"i'm going to do something stupid," irene murmurs. means. because she doesn't know how else to say it. her eyes are drawn to wendy's mouth. "i think i knew i was going to do this the moment you showed up."
a slow motion moment: her mouth opens, then closes, she leans over wendy, a hand pressing against her belly - gently, with some pressure. mostly because she's aware, always aware. gestures mean something. words mean something. with wendy, it always has meaning. so she stretches herself over her, pressing her mouth to her forehead, then to her cheek. this is is as far as i can go, she thinks. panics. her palms feel hot. there's a lump in her throat. she cannot think beyond whatever this is.
"are you going to kiss me?" wendy asks. sounds amused. her voice is husky.
"i - probably," irene whispers back.
wendy wets her lips. "okay."
"okay?"
"you can kiss me," wendy says.
irene's fingers spread across wendy's stomach. just against the hem of her t-shirt. she leans in. closer, closer. closer. to the point when her mouth just hovers over wendy's and her courage starts to dissipate. her heart is pounding in her ears. wendy's not moving. wendy is usually the one that moves first. closer, of course. she has that kind of patience. but irene feels stuck and it's almost devastating. her mouth ghosts across the corner of wendy's mouth and the knots in her stomach start to settle in.
instead, irene pulls back. "let's go get dinner," she says.
you know what's cruel?
later, much later, irene has an empty dorm room. seulgi texts her and says something like 'STAYING w SY!' which could mean a number of things. since seulgi is still a mystery. or just really, really private.
but irene has an empty room. she's in bed, on her back. aware of the ironing board that leans against the wall. of wendy's perfume, settled deeply into her bedsheets and pillow. of the way her hand starts to travel, from her throat, along her breast, across the slope over belly. her fingers hover just over her thighs and she thinks: i could have done this differently.
her thumb presses against the thin, cotton fabric of her pants. "seungwan," she breathes.
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https://archiveofourown.org/works/13707681/chapters/31488141
