6 from the fluff prompts, either seuldy or sowoo, if you want!! thank you bby<33
Prompt: “Welcome Home”
[Pairing: Seulgi/ Wendy| Genre: fluff, confessions, warnings for slight mentions of ED but no unhealthy mindsets | Brigi I love u please take all this sappy stuff]
“Loneliness,I began to realise, was a populated place: a city in itself” – Olivia Laing
When Wendyfinally makes it out of the plane, the cool, crisp air hits her in the face andshe takes a deep breath. For a second, she almost misses the snow.
It snows inSeoul too, soft fluffy flakes lightly dusting the ground, but there’s somethingfundamentally different about the same weather in another city; some sort ofmetaphor about how places had personalities that seemed to bleed into theclimate. In Vancouver, it would snow relentlessly during the coldest nights,thick heavy sheets that blanketed everything and made it impossible to push thedoor open when she was a little kid. It was the kind of cold that chased you,seeped into the cracks of the buildings, made you wear socks even to bed andturn up the heating. It was the kind of weather that demanded attention, thatrequired every conversation to start with the words wow its really freezing today isn’t it?
She’salways had a funny relationship with snow. Back in Canada it had been thebiggest nuisance when she was a kid, forcing her to bundle up in layer afterlayer that eventually made her feel hot and suffocated, struggling to wadethrough mountains of the sparkling white power with her tiny frame that neverseemed to grow taller. Mostly, though,Wendy used to hate how the snow blanketed everything around her and cut her offfrom the rest of the outside world in their old family home. Sometimes duringearly mornings when everyone else was fast asleep, she used to peer out of thewindows with her hands pressed to the cold glass, watching the flakes swirlaround outside with an aching sense of loneliness that was too big and toostrong for someone so young.
Now inSeoul, she couldn’t cut herself off from the world if she tried. The air inSeoul buzzes with friction, cars honking endlessly, the subway making endlessloops, businessmen running frantically in the mornings and children heading offto their hogwans late into the night. Even the houses seem to get smaller andmore cramped every time she returns even if that’s not actually possible, thethin walls leaving everyone inevitably eavesdropping on each other. In Seoulthere is no feeling of infinity, of Wendy being swallowed whole by herfeelings. Instead there’s only the relentless drive to push herself further tothe breaking point, the intense pressure that can only come when everyonearound you seems to be working harder than you.
( It’s notperfect but when you’ve felt it long enough, loneliness could be comforting.There could be some real, genuine satisfaction in that mass anonymity, in aplace were you were known for nothing but your work. Wendy will take it, shethinks, as she unlocks the front door of her dorm, ready for to be confrontedby a freezing cold apartment covered indust and a todo list that will be miles long. It’s what she left home for. )
When sheunlocks her door and walks into her dorm though, the heating has already been turned upand the curtains are drawn, muffling the sounds of traffic outside. The dorm isusually cramped, but now even more so thanks to all the cardboard boxeslittered on the furniture and floor, as well as a bunch of grocery bags thrownon the table instead of stocked in the fridge. The shower isn’t running, butthe bathroom door has been left open and the room smells like the fruity scentof shampoo.
“Hey” saysSeulgi.
Wendysquints, trying to adjust to darkness and can just about make out a lump ofblankets she assumes is her roommate and fellow student Kang Seulgi.
(Andgirlfriend, if months and months of Seulgi flirting with her and Wendymisreading the signs and then one kiss and confession just before wintervacation qualifies as dating. Wendy isn’t sure how to have that conversationyet)
“Hey” shereplies, parking her meagre suitcase by the door, “did you seriously just cometo the dorm and then go to sleep?”
“Uh no”says Seulgi indignantly,though the last word turns into a yawn, which kind ofruins the indignation. “I took a shower, you know. And went grocery shopping”
“And forgotto put away the groceries” she retorts, face twisting into a fond smile despiteherself.
“How wasthe flight?” asks Seulgi, stretching luxuriously in her bed and clearly tryingto change the topic.
“Alright”replies Wendy. It was hell; there was a baby screaming for atleast eight hoursbut that doesn’t matter. Right now, she’s kind of awkwardly shifting from footto foot without trying to give that away because she’s tired and muddled and her eyes have adjusted to the darkness, so shecan see Seulgi’s face, mouth crinkled into one of her usual smiles and her faceall puffy and soft from sleep and it is…um…distracting. She doesn’t know whatto do with herself. She’s terrified ofsaying the wrong thing.
Seulgi humsthoughtfully, her voice raspier than usual from waking up. Then she sticks herarms out from under the blankets and makes grabby motions, gesturing for theother girl to join her.
Wendy feelsa small blush work its way onto her face despite her best efforts, stillslightly frozen to the spot. Seulgi makes a whining sound, wiggling her handsadorably and Wendy relents, kicking off her shoes and carefully draping her jacketon the head board before crawling into the space Seulgi’s left beside her. Itwas freezing cold back in Canada but right now its so warm, with the heat of Seulgi’s body and the three blankets she’swrapped tightly around them.
Cuddlingwith Seulgi is both comforting and nerve racking, long before they admitted thekind of feelings between them: it’s just so much close proximity, the two of them pressed tightly against oneanother, Seulgi’s chest right upto hers and their legs wrapped around eachother. She smells like shampoo and her skin is soft and warm in the kind of wayit can be when you’ve just woken up. Wendy can feel her body struggling to meltinto it and tense up at the same time.
Seulginotices, because she’s always noticed Wendy, long before the other girl thoughtthere was even a sliver of chance that the great Kang Seulgi would even thinkof her as a friend, and she smooths Wendy’s bangs away from her forehead,shifting away a little so that Wendy can get space.
“We didn’treally talk about what happened before you left, did we?” she says.
(Here’s howit went: Wendy arrived in Korea and was given a student accommodation with abubbly, bright dance major named Seulgi who seemed to single handedly be themost popular student on campus. Wendy had liked her obviously, subtly fallenfor her the way every single male student seemed to, but college wasdisorienting and overwhelming even without the element of Wendy adjustingawkwardly to cultural and language differences. As the weeks past, she’d made a few friends,and was beloved by most of the professors, even on the days she didn’t havebaked goods to give them, but Seulgi-almost too beautiful to be real Seulgi-had turned into the kind of roommate that seemed to care almost as much asfamily members in those movies Wendy had grown up on as a kid. She’d gentlywake up Wendy on the mornings where she’d sleep through her alarm, leave herbreakfast on the kitchen table, and approach her late night with softsuggestions to sleep. She’d invite her out for fun nights and plan for both ofthem to watch movies together, cuddled up in one bed like teenagers. Wendy didn’treally cry when she was sad, didn’t like to show that she was down, but Seulgifelt everything unabashedly and honestly, and more that once or twice Wendy hadheld her close to her chest, stroking her hair, reassuring her that it wasgoing to be fine after specially harsh feedback. It’s a strange thing to admit,but it was a while before Wendy realized that this was what genuine connectionsfelt like, that it wasn’t another person who’d be happy to hang around for thefirst few days before inevitably getting dissolved into their own real friendgroups.
Seulgiintroduced Wendy to her own little group of friends, all brilliant and talentedlike she was, and somehow, Wendy fit right in, enjoying her own quiet time withJoohyun, fooling around with Soonyoung, and helping Yeri through her homeworkwhile the girl fretted about exams. The semester had gotten easier, somethinghad loosened up in her chest after and Wendy had a regular list ofacquaintances to hit up after that but Seulgi still remained the first personshe wanted to spend all her time with, and both of them had jumped headfirstinto the confusing, dizzying heights that came with adulthood, the person thatshe left with for ramen at three am in the morning.
When Seulgiasked her out, it wasn’t an impulsive, late night thing though. Wendy had beenpacking, arranging everything neatly on her bed, when Seulgi had gotten up andstood next to her, hands clasped nervously. “I want to tell you something” shewhispered, and then instead leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth, a soft,nervous peck. Wendy had dropped the clothes she was holding, kissed her back,and then she had to get on a plane and not see her for the next three weeks)
“You sentme a text that was like three paragraphs long trying to assure me that nothinghad to change if I didn’t want it to” says Seulgi, chuckling slightly.
“In mydefense, I was drunk” protested Wendy, still remembering sitting on the floorof her family bathroom, ignoring the Christmas party going on downstairs andsquinting at her autocorrect. “And-and”-she’s stammering again, fucking hell-“Imean, I do mean it, nothing has to change if you don’t want it to or anything,three weeks is a really long time to think about things, I mean, I care aboutyou deeply and your comfort comes first so-“
Seulgismooths down her hair again, looking at her with the kind of pinched expressionon her face, like what she’s saying hurts to hear in a way. “You’re so kindWendy” she says, warm breath tickling her face. It makes her shiver. “But rightnow, you don’t have to be. Do you want to date me?”
Wendy feelsher face go hot. It’s not really a sad moment, in fact its one of those momentsthat should make her scream and jumpwith joy if she watched it on a movie, but she feels tears prick the corner ofher eyes even though she’s not sure why. “Yes” she confesses, and it’s the firsttime she’s put those feelings into words. It makes her throat go warm and itchy. “I would-would like to I mean I’vewanted to for a long time but I’m-I’m not, like, um in tip top condition and I’dprobably be really bad at it so sorry about that in advance I mean-“
Seulgikisses her to make her shut up. Wendy makes an embarrassing squealing sound.
“Sometimes,during the first year of college, you’d scare me” says Seulgi, and it’s aconfession too, just not the kind that gets recorded in most movies. “You’dcome over in the night, after a whole day of working nonstop, and you’d stillbe moving, cleaning, cooking, but your eyes would be completely dead. And youwere so alone, coming all the way from Canada, with no friends, and it scaredme, I didn’t know what do in the beginning, so I didn’t say anything- “
“-You didn’thave to say anything. You didn’t-it wasn’t your fault or anything, in fact itwasn’t anyone’s fault. I just…..I just had things to deal with”
Seulgi’sstill looking at her with furrowed brows, so Wendy leans forward and kisses heragain. “Being here has helped so much” she whispers into Seulgi’s skin, “beinghere, I can’t-I don’t have the words for it yet but it helps so much”
There are alot of things that Wendy used to convince herself Seulgi would never beinterested, most of all the fact that she’s ill, and the kind of illnesses thatother people don’t like acknowledge, let alone talk about. Being back in Canadawas like trying to navigate a tightrope of feelings and should nots, it wasendless questions about how much or how little she was eating, about how sheshould and shouldn’t have left, about all the things she’d missed since she’d beengone. It was family dinners where all she could hear was the sound of forks andknives scraping the plate and trying to pretend she didn’t miss the taste ofeating ramen at midnight when both of them were too exhausted to thinkstraight. It was spending hours in her bedroom with the door shut and fallingasleep at odd hours of the day
A questionthat both Wendy and Seulgi would have laughed at one semester ago: where didfeelings go when you’d spent your whole life trying to crush them out ofoblivion, bury them deep down?
Wendy usedto think they turned could disappear, melt away like the snow in Seoul, andthat given enough time, everyone would forget about them when spring emerged,flowers blooming to cover up the bruises. Instead, she’d learned the hard waythat they turned rock hard and settled into her throat and chest, bubbled upinconveniently in the form of tears late in the night and panic attacks duringher worst moments. All those issues that she’d been convinced she was over hadtaken her by surprise, showed up in odd corners and alleys, held her down, and Wendy’dlearned the hard way that feelings demanded to be felt, that there was no pointpretending otherwise. It hurts, but it also feels so much more honest. Like themoment in spring when the snow began to melt into slush and it was nowhere asbeautiful, but there was also nowhere to hide, all the cracks in the Earth laidbare to see.
“I know youdon’t like to talk about Canada” says Seulgi, lips pressed faintly on the skinof Wendy’s shoulder, her hands stroking Wendy’s back aimlessly, reassuringly. “AndI know you overthink things a lot. But even if its hard, just remember youdon’t have to worry when you’re with me”
After solong of being deprived of it, it’s hard to recognize that feeling thrumming inher chest, melting her bones and causing something warm to bloom in herstomach: happiness. It’s been so longsince she felt a sense of belonging, of that bone deep feeling of contentment,to the point where she’s slightly afraid of that feeling, but Seulgi gentlytugs her closer and presses a soft kiss to her forehead and Wendy’s buries herface into the crook of her neck almost like she’s compelled. She thinks shemight give up everything she had for Seulgi if the other girl wanted her to.She thinks she’s not ready to put that into words. Atleast not yet. But she can kiss the dip where her neck meetsher shoulder, gently trace soft skin on her stomach, and lie in the darktogether.
“Do youthink our laundry machines are broken again?” Wendy says, because she wasmusing about how the maintenance are probably late again on the taxi ride home,and weirdly enough, it’s the only thing she can bring herself to say.
“Aren’t they ever year?” Seulgi is probablyrolling her eyes, and Wendy can’t bring herself to turn around and check, toobusy blinking away the last of her tears, but she kisses the soft skin as kindof a way to communicate anyway, to tell someone she loves them in messagestransmitted through skin.
“Welcomehome” whispers Seulgi, kissing her forehead. And she’s right. Wendy’s home now.The rest can wait.
