Irene was the most childish human to ever exist if she must say so herself. Because what kind of adult let her crooked mood and discomfort dictate her doing? Perhaps, that was her toxic trait speaking—but the point was, she was acting immature for her age, although it was triggered by an unpleasant event she witnessed between her eyes, she could have taken the high road instead of nurturing the pettiness in her heart, like ended up cancelling her dinner plan with Lisa and left the woman ignored and bewildered for a little over a month by then; Lisa was probably questioning herself if ever she did something to offend the older that led them to the point where Irene kept on ignoring her calls and neglecting her messages, even her birthday greetings, which the younger ended up sending it by text only because the older one could not bother to pick her phone up in the first place.
The thing was Lisa did not do anything wrong.
Irene did.
Simply by fooling herself.
But it got her thinking—quite hard, really. Was it jealousy? Was that how jealousy was supposed to taste? She thought it was supposed to be bitter and made her miserable. Honestly, she could handle bitter and miserable better than the feeling she currently had churning in her stomach; it was like gasoline and the gasoline was poured into a flame and it made her burn everything—by burning everything, it simply meant she had been doing senseless things. Idiot things.
She was turning into an idiot was all she was saying.
So finally, her lack of experience in the particular department managed to catch up with her arse. See, having no interest whatsoever in pursuing anything in the love section of her life never quite gave Irene time to sit down and think about her preferences. What surprised her more was that her brain was more focused on the fact that she had fallen for Lisa, who was not available, rather than the fact that she had fallen for Lisa, who was a woman.
Well, she was not some homophobe and she was never against the idea of same-gender being involved in a romantic relationship, still, it was news even to herself. She might have unconsciously shown some faint distaste towards men in general—in all fairness, she had never intended any offensive gestures towards any man, her body just reacted naturally, it was out of her control, and Luvies had pointed it out as a joke in some of their creatively produced crack videos, but to actually come to face the reality that she was, in fact, finally experiencing her first love (Irene cringed at the term), one she could acknowledge, with Lisa, who was a woman as was she a woman, took her aback.
She had her reasons—about ignoring Lisa, that was. Although it was mostly just to cover up traces of her pettiness, she still had her reasonable excuses; she had to think things through because what she felt for Lisa was clearly way over her head as a person who was lacking experience. She needed to make sure that what she was feeling was what she thought it was. She wondered if it was real because she did not want to make assumptions, drag Lisa into her own uncertainty, and end up hurting the other woman—that would be a very unnecessary turn of events. She could not be held responsible for any of that.
"Fancy seeing you here! You've been locking yourself up in your room for almost a month by now, eonni."
Irene let out a subtle 'you startled me' and glared to her right. Wendy always had ways to startle her. The girl had always been energetic and her overflowing energy was channelled to her every movement; be it simple, be it complicated, like then, she was just flopping herself to the vacant space of the sofa where Irene was resting her arse on but she created such a commotion that startled Irene while she was at it.
"That's not true," Irene denied that accusation. At least she did not feel so.
"Well, yeah, except when we have schedules, obviously."
Wendy was always level-headed when it was the most needed, despite her high tendency of speaking as if she swallowed megaphones, when it came to dealing with people personally, Wendy was on a high level. It might come from her kind-hearted nature and for that, probably Wendy could help enlighten and broaden her horizon in that new realm she had never dipped her toes into. Then, all she needed to do was to tell her story subtly but also clearly, it was the least of her intention to create an unnecessary ruckus—yes, Seungwan-ah, I like someone, yes, yes it is an idol, no, no it is not a male idol, it is a female idol, so the scenarios went in her head.
"Something on my face, eonni?"
"No—uh—no your face—face is fine. Gorgeous," Irene was caught off guard that she turned into a stuttering mess, she did not even realise she had been staring at the other girl. Wendy knew the older had something bothering her mind ever since they went to Japan for their Red Room tour concert in March. She just did not know what it was and she could not figure it out either; trying to figure out what it was inside Irene's mind was like trying to solve a Rubik's cube and she was probably one of the stupidest people when it came to solving Rubik's cube.
Irene was only one of two things; if she was not calm and collected, she was playful and plain weird. She had been neither of both for the past month (it had even been a while since the last Irene bothered her with her butt-squeezing hobby) so that only meant there was something bugging her. But waiting for Irene to open up was like waiting for the earth to take its pivot and start revolving the other way 'round, it was just scientifically impossible. Hence she poked the older gently, encouraging the woman.
"You can say anything you want, eonni."
Wendy said with a gentle smile, not batting an eye at the older and keeping her attention on the flat screen in front of them, it was playing another drama she never had a chance to see. After that, Wendy kept her silence, she did not try to invade Irene's space yet she made sure Irene know that although she was the eldest and the leader, she also could rely on her members.
"Seungwan-ah..."
It was gentle but it made Wendy unconsciously sit sternly. It was supposed to be quite comical, except Irene was too lost in her thoughts and Wendy was turning her ear frequency to the max that they missed every other thing between them.
"... Have you ever liked someone you stand no chance with?"
Wendy's eyes bulged. She was expecting anything—anything! But never that. She stared at her eonni for a couple of seconds hoping there was some continuation to what Irene just asked.
"My friend..."
Oh, there was.
"... Met someone who already had a lover. It was her first time caught in such a situation. So she doesn't know if she likes the person or if it is just a passing feeling. I have no experience so I don't know what to tell her, but it bothers my mind so much."
If Wendy was naïve she would have taken Irene's words to heart and believed her, but Wendy was not Seulgi—bless her pure heart and soul but their second-oldest could be dense at times it made you want to either put her in a pocket or just smack some sense into her head. Wendy, however, quickly picked up that the friend Irene mentioned was non-existent. Wendy could see straight through the lie easily because there was no way someone else's love life could bother Irene so much that she practically turned into a ghost; pale, sleep-deprived, and only made appearances when it was required.
Friend my arse, Wendy said but opted to keep it to herself as her mind wandered to every male human Irene had ever encountered.
"Oh, and the other person was a woman as well."
Or woman.
"How come does she think she likes the person she met, eonni? I mean how does she feel towards the other person that she comes to the conclusion that she probably likes her?" Wendy tried to compose herself. It was news to her—two news in one scene; first, Irene was interested in someone (something she did not know she could witness in that lifetime) and second, that someone happened to be a woman.
She was down with it. She just did not expect it to come so casually. It was actually a big deal, but who was she kidding? It was Irene they were talking about. She was not claimed no-jam for no reason. She was too calm for her own good sometimes; she should wear her heart on her sleeves once in a while when it came to such a thing.
"There is this unexplainable urge."
"Like urge, 'urge'?" Wendy emphasised the second urge word without opening her lips as if putting some dirty meaning to it.
"Not that urge, you nasty!" Irene smacked the back of Wendy's head making the woman hiss. She kept her silence though, waiting for Irene to explain her unexplainable urge.
"It's just unexplainable, Seungwan-ah. She can't put it in words. All she knows she likes the other's company; she even looks forward to it. She thinks of the other constantly as if she has been bewitched with a spell that curses her to only think of the other person. She wants to be with the other person in every way possible, whether it was in a good or bad situation, she wants to be there for the other. And when she saw the other with her lover, she felt so agitated she wanted to hurt someone but she couldn't because she knew her place—and that—"
That actually did not sound unexplainable at all.
"—That just made her helpless."
A single tear finally escaped Irene's system. After one month of locking not only herself in her room but also her feelings, she could finally let it out and it gave her a relief she did not know she had been holding herself from.
Wendy had known Irene for good six years and she had seen her cry once. So whoever that girl was who made Irene cry, well, Wendy did not know if she should kudos her or smack her head. So all she could do then was just engulf Irene in her warm hug as she rubbed her arm.
"Sounds to me she gets it bad, eonni."
Wendy finally gave her comment when she felt Irene's trembling shoulders had calmed down.
"I know I'm screwed," it was barely a voice, it just sounded like a murmur that Irene thought was missed by Wendy since the younger did not say anything about it, but Wendy heard it because Irene was resting her head on her shoulder and having a sensitive hearing as she did, enabled her to catch even a tiny sound, she opted not to comment on it and tried to soothe her eonni's cry down instead.
Irene knew what there was between Jennie and Lisa, yet she still foolishly and deliberately let her guard down without thinking things through. She thought her brain would save her from any uncomfortable feelings because she had been nothing but logical for the past 30 years. Who would have thought that she would end up there, where she cried her helplessness out in the arms of the person she was supposed to protect, not the other way around.
Why she even liked Lisa in the first place, she, too, was still wondering.
Why exactly?
It could have been anyone, could it not?
Everyone had their own charms; men and women were head over heels for her, she was aware of it. She could have just picked one. So why did she have to fall for the one who did not pick her?
"It doesn't matter, eonni, whether it's a real thing or just a passing one, every feeling is valid. You never know, one day you wake up and you look back regretting your decision to wonder on your own instead of telling what you feel to the other person. I mean, the other person has already had a lover anyway, pretty sure telling her that you like her won't affect her. Be selfish a little, the world won't crumble out of a little selfishness from a selfless person," Wendy smiled at her eonni who was so tiny in her arms. Wendy had always been fond of her eonni; she always thought how amazing it was that that tiny figure could hold so much strength, enough to carry four other persons. So to see her strong eonni breaking in her arms, she could not help being tongue-tied. She wished she had the answer, like how Irene always did.
That day Wendy understood that even the strongest had their weakness and every person did have their limits. Irene was human after all. She kissed the top of Irene's head as she promised herself that she would support Irene no matter what.
It was mid-May when Red Velvet finally got their day off—three days of it to rest and do whatever it was they wished to do in the middle of their busy schedule; comebacks, concerts, and even a fan-sign event in Chicago only a month prior. Their agency really made use of their momentum and it seemed like they planned on working the girls 'till their arses dropped, but the Velvets had been having the best times in their career ever since their debut—if they must say. See, when they first debuted, the feedback from the public could not be taken as positive; taking everything into consideration, it was probably only natural because Red Velvet came after big names—like SNSD and F(x), that was why the public had both high expectations and scepticism toward the girls. Things were only gradually getting better when Yeri joined them a year later as an official member. Then, their schedule was already packed until one or two years ahead; even after their super short break, they would start preparing for their upcoming performance in Pyongyang, North Korea along with several artists from their company as well.
"Everyone, I bring someone."
It was Seulgi. Irene was in her room, Joy, who had separated schedule in the short while, was busy with her drama, Yeri and Wendy were lounging in their living room after hunting snacks in the kitchen, and Seulgi just got back from God-know-where. Her voice sounded like a murmur, just a residual echo—or whatever it was called, but she was sure it was Seulgi, who had just come back from wherever she might be.
"Ah, it's Lisa!"
That time it was Wendy's voice that flicked her ears—or was it the name she mentioned? All she knew was either one of those freeze her body momentarily. She did not know what kind of trick the world had stored for pulling such a prank on her. The last person she wanted to see was literally dragged and delivered to her doorstep.
Lisa.
That time it was her; her own voice in her own head with her heart suddenly caught in her throat.
"Hi, everyone. I'm sorry for intruding."
It was Lisa alright.
"I'm researching for some breeders and she's helping me with it."
Irene, despite locking herself in her room, could hear everything that was happening outside of it. Seulgi had mentioned her intention to adopt a cat and she was so excited when she saw Lisa's live broadcast as the woman introduced her baby Leo, a Scottish Feld, about a month ago. It was kind of foreseen that Seulgi ended up asking Lisa about breeder and such. Lisa and Seulgi got close after their performance on the 2016 Gayo Daejun. Irene remembered how Seulgi could not stop saying how well-skilled Lisa's dance was and how she would love to have a dance practice with her. If Irene did not know better, she would have suspected that Seulgi had a crush on Lisa—if not had fallen hard for her, because from the way Seulgi spoke about Lisa, it was as if the woman hung the bloody stars in the sky and shot rainbow out of her arse.
She did not. But Irene thought she might as well do.
"Yah, eonni! I thought you were joking when you said you'd like to adopt cats," the youngest Yeri almost shouted, excitement was barely contained in her voice.
The chattering and laughter had been going on for hours. Red Velvet's dorm had always been lively but then Lisa was there, it had become way louder than it usually was and Irene could not help feeling bothered; not because of the racket outside her door, but because of the urge to go out and see Lisa for herself. It had been a few hours by then and she had wanted to come out but what ought she to do?
Screw it.
Her curiosity was overwhelming and the eagerness to see Lisa's face again got the best of her that she just grabbed her coat and unlocked her door.
"Oh, hi, Lisa," she greeted the younger when their eyes met and she quickly averted her gaze somewhere—anywhere, before she sold herself out. At least, she was good at acting nonchalantly.
"I—I'll be going out, you guys. Please behave."
"Where to, eonni?" Wendy asked, the sun was heading towards the end of the horizon.
"Just outside for a while. I'll bring dinner."
She made her way to the front door and by the time she closed the door behind she heard Lisa's voice, startling her.
"Ah, I'll be going now too. Thank you for having me."
Irene could hear her members whining. Lisa was a member of Blackpink who rarely came to visit, Jisoo had been there a couple of times with Chaeyoung, while Jennie had been practically living with them. Sure they had met one another a lot with the rest of the groups outside, but it was probably the first time they actually interacted with Lisa and from the look of it, she could tell that Lisa had charmed her members as well. Irene quickly made her way out so she would not have to meet Lisa and entertain the younger.
"Eonni, let's walk together."
She heard Lisa say loudly and clearly despite their distance. But instead of stopping, Irene fastened her pace.
"Eonni-yaaah," Lisa called her when she slammed her hand on the elevator door and made her way inside the moving cubicle, creating a particularly odd atmosphere between them because Lisa clearly wanted to talk to the older while Irene was trying her arse off to not initiate any interaction with the younger.
"Yah, eonni!" Lisa called again when she saw Irene jumping out of the elevator the moment it dinged open.
"Eonni, you shouldn't walk that fast with those tiny feet, you'll hurt yourself," it was clearly Lisa's final attempt; it was risky but she no longer cared. Irene Bae was something else.
This brat.
"Do you have a death wish?"
If looks could kill, well, Lisa would have been lying on the street sinking in her own pool of blood.
"I'm joking. I'm joking. Anything to make you stop," Lisa slowly approached the older as she flashed her million-dollar smile.
"Where are you going, eonni?"
'Any place where I do not have to deal with you for a while' was what she had in mind.
Hearing nothing from the older one, Lisa took the matter into her hand.
"Let's go to the park, eonni," She suggested.
That damn park, Irene cursed in her head. It was a cursed place in her head—that was where she saw Lisa in a different light; a light she was not supposed to see the younger in. But as if she was on an auto-pilot, the moment she realised it, her feet had brought her to the exact park. They both fell in silence; a comfortable one, the one that might lead to delusions or wishful thinking, the one that was so dangerous one should never dwell in it for too long.
"Eonni, are you avoiding me?" Lisa broke their silence as she slowly rocked herself on the swing.
"Why should I?"
"I don't know, you tell me, you're the one who's been avoiding me, I don't know if I was being sensitive, if you were just super busy or if I did something wrong, eonni. What did I do wrong, eonni?" Frustration was latched in her voice, it was slightly breaking.
"Lisa."
Irene called the younger as she heaved a sigh. She mustered all her courage up and stared at the wild eyes captured in the doe-shaped eyes. She could not run forever, could she?
"I'm sorry."
'For making your eyes running so wildly you seem like you have lost it. Why do you wear such a face, Lisa? I am a nobody to you.'
"You're not being sensitive. I didn't reply to your text not because I was busy and you didn't do anything wrong."
She stared at the younger whose eyes were blasted by the golden ray of the sun and they were beautiful as if they were glazing in honey. They were so mesmerising. Lisa was so enrapturing.
"I didn't reply your text because I was selfish."
She averted her eyes once again. She could not tell what she ought to tell Lisa by staring at her in her eyes. She would die out of embarrassment before she could do so. So instead, she threw her gaze away, far away as she watched the clouds that burned into the summer sky passed by.
"For the longest time I told myself I was stupid, for the longest time—I convinced myself that I was in fact stupid and slowly I came to believe it. I was stupid for chasing shadow," she hitched a breath before admitting out loud, "The shadow of you who loves another."
Lisa kept her quiet, letting Irene speak.
"I bury all my desire of wanting you until someone knocked my head off and I realised, I don't want to live in a world where I'll wake up one day to regret what I didn't do," Irene drew a sharp breath before she continued, "I was waiting for the right time to come to you but I suppose there's no better time than now. I know I'm not in any position of feeling such a thing. To me, this sort of feeling is new and I don't know how to deal with it. So, I end up avoiding you, who have been nothing but kind to me."
Lisa still opted to keep her silence—or probably it was more like she did not know how to respond to all that.
"Do you remember the first time I caught you kissing Jennie?"
It was Lisa's turn to avert her gaze, even while showering under the sun, the pink tint of embarrassment could still be seen painted on her cheeks.
"I caught you guys again when you were in Japan and that time you didn't know that I saw you two, but what I felt when I first caught you was so very different from the second time I did; the second time left a void. It consumes me and I think it's not good for me."
"So for once, just so I can find my own peace, I have to be selfish towards you once again. I think I like you, Lisa."
"I like you too, eonni," Lisa said, seemingly missing the whole point of whatever it was that Irene just said. No wonder she got along well with Seulgi, they came in the same bean pod. Irene could not possibly put her words in any clearer manner, so she stood up and blocked the sun from Lisa's face as she leaned in and boldly claimed the younger's lips.
The kiss did not last, but the taste—the only thing Irene regretted out of all those was just the fact that it would be the last time they kissed.
"I like you exactly like that. Do you?"
Lisa already had her eyes on her feet. Irene managed to cut the brain wire that seemed to make Lisa malfunction.
"I'm sorry, eonni," Lisa whispered.
"Don't," Irene plead as she threw her arse back to the swing next to Lisa as if nothing happened, "Don't be sorry for things you can't control, it'll make me feel like an even bigger jerk."
"Eonni, can we be friends?" Lisa finally said a few seconds after her brain cells came back to life.
"I'll try."
"Thank you, eonni," Lisa smiled gratefully, "And I'm sorry if ever you felt like I led you on," Lisa sincerely addressed her apology.
The thing was Lisa did not. She was just being kind and Irene's arse was the one who fell for Lisa's kindness. It was all her.
"I know I seem to be asking too much from you, but can I ask you for one more favour, Lisa?"
Lisa feverishly nodded. As long as she could do it, she would. Irene had agreed to try befriending her and putting her feelings aside. The least she could do was agree to do her favours.
"Joohyunnie," Irene said, which made Lisa's brain stop for a while before the older gave her explanation, "I don't know if you remember, but you did call me so once."
"I did last Christmas, didn't I?"
"Could you—"
"—And I'll do only so from now on. Is that okay?" Lisa smiled widely. That she could do. That she could do easily.
"That'll be lovely."
"Very well, let's be friends then, Joohyunnie."
Irene did not know what to expect out of it, probably she was just the biggest masochist to ever exist by seemingly intending to hurt herself, but one thing she knew for sure was that she would rather be Lisa's friend than nothing at all.