“Yes, yes, I could run them by you sometime this week. I’m almost done with it.” Irene pinned her phone to her ear with her shoulder as she started picking up the assortment of toys scattered all over the floor around Hyemi who was happily playing with her piano toy. 

“I understand. Thank you.” Irene sighed and ended the call. “Okay sweetie, let’s wash up.” Irene bent down to take the toy from her 6 month old daughter, but Hyemi clearly had other plans and let out a soft whimper.

Hyemi started reaching for the toy pitifully with her tiny hand, trying to lift herself up, but landing on her bum each time.

"You think that works on me? That only works on mommy," she said with a smirk.

Hyemi's eyes started to water, and her small mouth formed into a pout. Irene melted instantly.

"You get 5 minutes."

A second after handing her daughter the toy, the pout and whimpers were replaced with a gleeful laugh. Damn it.

Irene sighed once more and checked her phone. Still no messages from Wendy today.

This was the first time they had been away from each other for even a day since Irene was still pregnant and Irene had become restless. She had gotten so used to Wendy’s comforting presence, no words even needed between them. 

It had gotten worse since Irene returned to work and they barely had enough time with each other as it is. 

Now, Wendy was away for four days because her father asked her for her help with overseeing renovations of one of his buildings and some business deals since he was out of the country. He was deeply apologetic for even bringing it up with her since he knew they weren't exactly in a position to be taking on tasks like that but his hands were tied. It was also the first favor Mr. Shon had asked of her since Wendy signed up to be a donor. Wendy could have also declined anyway and Mr. Shon would have understood, but Wendy still had too much guilt to be saying no to her father anytime soon.

Wendy insisted she'd rather drive back and forth for seven hours everyday for four days than stay at a hotel and leave her alone but Irene managed to convince her it wasn't worth it. Luckily for them, Yeri's mom happily agreed to watching Hyemi while Irene was at work.

Irene regretted not savoring their last three months of isolation more. She envisioned her returning to her job to be a calm and peaceful process, with her slowly easing back into it, but instead, it felt like getting doused with a bucket of ice cold water. Apart from her classes, even her visits to the teacher’s lounge were exhausting. She adored her colleagues, but she wished they would stop badgering her with questions about her leave and her home life, especially after learning about Wendy. No thanks to Yeri and her big mouth.

The only window of peace she could find at work was in the guidance office with Joy, which instantly became her sanctuary and where she spent all of her free time in.

“There’s no way it’s only 11 in the morning.” She groaned, burying her face in her hands. It was the third day since Wendy left and also the third day since Irene has had a decent night’s sleep.

“I see you’re enjoying being employed again.” Joy grinned.

“Don’t start with me, I’m still adjusting. This just came as a surprise.”

“And not the last,” said Joy with all certainty. “You okay?”

"I have a terrible headache. Hyemi was up all night crying, probably missing Wendy." Irene frowned, rubbing her temples. If she wasn't so stubborn and hellbent on proving they’re entirely capable of spending time apart, she'll admit she missed the girl too. Probably more than Hyemi.

"Have you taken any pills?"

"Yes and it didn't work."

"Did you try mastu—"

"Joy!" Irene exclaimed in horror, lunging forward to cover the girl's mouth, completely forgetting about her headache.

"What, there are studies on that," said Joy after leaning away from her.

"You do realize kids might hear you talk like that!?"

"Relax, I don't know anyone here that I'd say that to other than you. Well, maybe that old bat in the clinic, so she can loosen up, but I wouldn't cause I don't want to go to jail."

"Can you go for 24 hours without saying anything inappropriate?"

"Only in front of my mother. Otherwise, I have no filter."

"How did we get so lucky?" 

Friday couldn’t come any sooner.

 

⇼⇼⇼⇼⇼⇼
 

She’s holding up just fine, is what Irene’s mantra for the past four days has been.

She was fine the first night she slept with an empty spot next to her on the bed, she was fine when she resorted to using two pillows as a substitute for Irene to hold on the second night when she didn’t get a wink of sleep the night before, she was fine when Wendy’s video calls grew less frequent as the days passed, and she was certainly still doing just fine when she received a string of apologies from Wendy telling her that she had to stay for one more day.

This was the gods punishing her for her overconfidence in returning to work, Irene was sure of it. They’ve never really been on her side.

For this to come at a time when they were actually making a lot of progress in their relationship truly is a testament to their never ending fascination with Irene’s suffering. 

She convinced herself that her constant reassurances during Wendy’s calls that she wasn’t having a hard time was for Wendy not to worry or get more wrapped up in guilt, and not also just her own stubbornness in denying that she has developed an embarrassingly strong dependence on the girl. Something she hasn’t experienced with anyone before.

No one needed to know that Wendy’s voice messages for Hyemi at night helped her more than their daughter to get some sleep.

She had hoped her job would serve as a distraction, but it’s useless when there’s always a nosy student or faculty member asking her about her family. 

“What does your partner do?”

“What’s your baby’s name?”

“Are you changing your last name, Miss Bae?”

When Sunday came, she tried to think of anything but the other girl’s face after their phone call the previous night had been interrupted by another call. She busied herself with Hyemi, chores and other unfinished tasks around the house. 

She passed by the framed pictures hanging in the hallway on her way out of their bedroom after putting Hyemi to sleep. Next to a photo of her and her siblings was the picture of her and Wendy taken on Christmas Eve when she was still pregnant. They have since added more pictures of the three of them, just her and Wendy, and of Hyemi all over the house, but this was one they both cherished. Thankfully there were no traces of the awkwardness they felt when it was taken and it just looked like any other photo of a happy family. Irene smiled at the memory. 

Her hand had reached into her pocket out of habit again. The last message from Wendy had been at 4 in the morning. 

Irene decided she wasn’t going to let her off easy. Irrational thoughts of how she was going to punish her being conceived in her mind on her way to the kitchen but stopped in her tracks at the sight before her.

"You're back," Irene said simply, holding her phone firmly in her hands.

Standing there in the living room was her girlfriend of 8 months, still wearing a white button-down and holding her blazer over her shoulder, her bags next to her on the floor. 

"Surprise." Wendy grinned. "Missed me?"

The black device was carelessly tossed to the armchair in an instant, her mind and body on autopilot. Before Wendy could even utter another word, Irene’s mouth was on hers, swallowing the gasp of surprise Wendy let out as the back of her knees hit the couch and Irene wasted no time in pinning her on her back.

She couldn’t for the life of her remember what she was supposed to be doing, fully absorbed in closing the distance between them. That it had to take a second to register that she was running her tongue along Wendy's lips and Wendy had given her access to without a second thought.

One hand wandered down Wendy's side and thigh, her other arm propping herself up next to Wendy's head as she continued to familiarize herself with the taste that was so uniquely Wendy.

She ended the kiss, but only to pepper more kisses on Wendy's face. She let her lips graze Wendy's ear, kissing her just below it, then allowed her lips to travel further down to her neck.

Wendy's breath hitched, and Irene felt her grip the back of her shirt tightly. She let out a low groan, the sound reminding Irene of how frustrated she was during the last trimester of her pregnancy, but she couldn't do anything because they were idiots who were still dancing around their feelings and Wendy would probably balk at the thought of doing anything that could potentially harm the baby anyway.

Wendy's hand s around her neck and brought her head back up to her, crushing her lips against hers once more. Her own hand had been clutching the hem of Wendy's shirt and was slowly lifting it up when they were interrupted by a loud cry coming from the baby monitor on the end table near Wendy's head.

Before Hyemi could even let out another wail, Wendy had already slipped from underneath her and let Irene's body drop down on the couch with her cheek planted against the cushion. She buried her face in it and groaned.

 

⇼⇼⇼⇼⇼⇼

 

Irene’s mood had improved exponentially that Monday morning, which did not go unnoticed by her students and coworkers. She waved off all the good-natured teasing, but kept smiling the entire day until her last class.

As she was gathering her things from her desk, she heard a soft knock.

Wendy was standing there by the door, surprising her again for the second time that week.

“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be with Hyemi?” Irene asked out of concern despite her joy at seeing Wendy at her workplace.

“I asked Mrs. Kim to watch her for a few hours so I could stop by the stores and I thought we could pick her up and go home together.”

“Of course.” Irene beamed at her, preparing to leave. Wendy took her bags for her and held the door open as she stepped out of the room, her hand naturally slipping in between them to hold Wendy’s, but was startled when Wendy retracted hers.

“No PDA, I don’t want to get you into trouble.” She warned in a playful tone.

“Ugh.” Irene huffed out in annoyance.

On the other side of the hallway, a group of girls were whispering by the lockers as they tried to subtly— but failing to— sneak in glances at the two of them. Irene could make out the words 'wife', 'goals' and 'unfair'.

She ignored the giggling and focused on Wendy as they walked down the hall together.

"I see you have a lot of admirers," Wendy teased with a grin, nodding towards a male student they had passed who had been too busy staring at Irene to see the locker he crashed into and dropped the books he was carrying. “I’m pretty sure it’s not me they’re looking at and that this is a daily occurrence for you.”

"Oh. Yeah, I guess." Irene sighed. "I don't know if it's a good thing. Half my class is doing well because they pay so much attention to me and half isn’t for the same reason." Wendy laughed loudly at that, and Irene pouted. "It's not funny!"

"The mental image is, trust me."

"They asked to see photos of Hyemi today." Irene diverted the topic.

"Did you show them one?" She nodded.

Irene didn't tell Wendy that her students have already seen photos of them courtesy of Joy and her need to seem like the cool adult by telling them her username (Thankfully not her private and personal one which in her opinion should never see the light of day). Half the comments were some millennial lingo that made absolutely no sense to her, but from what she had gathered, to them they seemed like a good pair.

"I told them if class finished earlier, I will. I showed them the one in her panda onesie."

Wendy let out a tiny squeal. "I love that one." 

"They did too.” She laughed. “They asked me to post it on Instagram."

"Wow, did you tell them you don't know what that is?"

"I'll put you on diaper duty for a week."

"I'm already on diaper duty the whole week. I just had a short break." Wendy laughed, but unknowingly had caused guilt to sneak up on Irene.

An apology was on the tip of her tongue when they saw a face Irene wasn’t supposed to see in the school.

"What are you doing here?" Irene quirked a brow at her. "You've graduated."

"I'm just picking up a few forms.” Yeri rolled her eyes, Joy snickering next to her. “Calm down grandma, I'm not here to make you miserable for another year."

“It’s good you’re here,” said Wendy. “We’re picking up Hyemi from your mom so we can drop you off.”

“Ms. Bae! Ms. Bae!” someone called out, their heads turning to the source. “I’m just returning these to you.” The woman who was holding a short stack of paper said after she finally caught up to them. “Oh!” She exclaimed. “This isn’t your lovely partner Wendy, is it?”

Upon hearing her name, Wendy stepped forward with a slightly confused expression.

"Hey, come meet Mrs. Gomez," said Irene. “Wendy, this is Mrs. Gomez, she teaches Math. Mrs. Gomez, meet my girlfriend Wendy.” She gestured between them with a hand.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Wendy extended a hand, smiling brightly. “Irene mentions you sometimes. Thank you so much for looking after her.”

“Oh I barely do anything for her. It’s her who keeps helping me out.” She chuckled. “And I’ve certainly heard about you. It’s nice to finally meet the woman who’s been keeping our Irene happy these days. It was so fascinating to hear your story. I understand you’ve been together for almost a year now?”

“Would have been a lot longer if they weren’t so clueless.” Yeri muttered.

"Oh. Miss Kim, you're here too." Her tone lost all cheerfulness, a tight-lipped smile on her aging face.

"Hey, Mrs. G." Yeri chuckled nervously. "You're not still mad about my junior year, are you?"

The middle-aged woman just hummed in response and brought her attention back to Irene and Wendy.

“Would you indulge me for a few minutes?”

“About what?” Wendy asked, still wearing a smile. 

“This set-up of yours…”

“Pardon?”

"I don't mean to pry, but—"

Wendy was too polite to point out that she already was, and she trusted Yeri or Joy to interject instead but from the evil glint in their eyes, it seemed like they wanted her to ask whatever probing questions the old woman had.

She really doesn’t give Wendy enough credit for explaining their “set-up” to people with a straight face, void of any exasperation like what Irene felt hearing it for the fiftieth time even when she wasn’t the one telling the story.

"How strange." Mrs. Gomez commented after Wendy finished. "This country's laws even allow people to register three parents now. Yours would have been an easy case."

They heard Joy emit a sound that was a cross between a snort and a laugh from behind them.

"That's what I've been saying, you stubborn idiots." Joy whispered under her breath.

“Well, like Wendy said, there’s no restrictions, and it doesn’t really affect how we are at home,” said Irene, trying to settle on an excuse to give to escape from the woman. “I’m sorry, we really must go. We asked Yeri’s mom to watch our daughter and she has to leave soon.”

“Wha— my mom’s not—”

“Yes, we really must,” Wendy slapped a hand over Yeri’s shoulder, her fingers digging into flesh that had the younger girl squirming. “I’m so sorry for cutting this short but we’ve really inconvenienced her enough. Shall we, Yeri?”

“Hmmhmm,” Yeri forced a smile, eyes twitching.

“No, no! I’m sorry for keeping you. But we’d have to talk again sometimes. Perhaps over dinner, Irene?”

“That would be lovely, Mrs. Gomez. Thank you for offering. We’ll be going now. Goodbye!”

Joy’s cheshire cat grin when they left the building was still in her thoughts during the ride to Yeri’s.

“It’s coming up more often these days, huh?” said Wendy.

“I don’t think it’s something people ought to be concerned about, really.” She shrugged, opting to watch the sun beginning to set outside instead of the driver’s seat where Wendy was, surely sending worried looks at her as much as she could while still focusing on the road.

“But I think we do have to talk about it again, don’t you? I mean, the only reason Kevin and Daewon didn't just straight up have us share parental custody was so that you would still have an out if you decided it wasn't what you wanted, but we're already here," said Wendy, clearly pertaining to their current relationship. “And that was just out of respect for what was written there, we’ve always had a chance to change things when Hyemi was born.”

"No."

"Well have you considered it at least? It's actually not a bad idea, and I know you've kept saying it's all just titles but they actually do matter, if we're really going to think about it."

"I meant that I don't want to do anything yet when there's still an option to progress to that, the conventional way."

"O-oh," Wendy managed to get out, completely flustered. Irene had her head hung low and felt the warmth rising to her cheeks and she didn't need to look to her side to know that Wendy was equally red in the face.

If either one of them bothered to look at the rearview mirror, they would have caught Yeri typing furiously on her phone, her smile of excitement and glee almost sinister.

⇼⇼⇼⇼⇼⇼
 

Irene stirred awake. She knew it was far too early because she wasn’t turning off the alarm from her phone which she keeps close to her ear so she won’t wake Hyemi. Instead, Irene woke to a delicate finger tracing along her jaw from her ear down to her chin.

“What,” she rasped, voice still heavy with remnants of sleep.

“I’m just looking,” Wendy replied with equal huskiness, nuzzling closer to her. She must have just woken up too.

“You can look as much as you want later. Let’s sleep a little longer.” She shifted on the bed to lay on her back and pulled Wendy to her. The shorter girl burrowed her head into her shoulder and Irene hummed in contentment, breathing in her scent.

“Did you miss me?” Irene remembered the unanswered question when Wendy returned.

“Did you?” She asked instead.

“Yes.”

“How much?” She yawned, savouring hearing Wendy’s voice again and not through a phone call.

“I could wax poetic about how lonely it was not sleeping and waking up next to you, but the last time I tried that you threatened to kick me out of the room.”

“Because it was about every inch of my face and it was greasy as hell.” She deadpanned.

“It was funny though.”

“To you maybe.”

“It was. And I can confirm absence does make the heart grow fonder.” 

“That’s still a little cheesy, but I’ll let it slide.” 

Wendy smiled against her chest. “Did you miss me?” She repeated.

“I did, and what about it.” She finally admitted. “Never do that to me again. At least...not for a while. I guess even after 8 months I’m not ready to let you go just yet.”

“It wasn’t even a week.”

“Well it felt longer.”

They fell into a comfortable silence.

She didn’t know how much time had passed, and Irene was about to fall back asleep when she felt Wendy stir.

It was barely a whisper, but it was loud and clear to her ears. It echoed along with the sound of her heartbeat that quickened after hearing Wendy utter the words.

Smiling, she kissed her softly and whispered back

"I love you too."

 

 

---

Hello everyone.

It has become quite common for me to end my updates with an apology and I think after almost three years of my absence, I don't know what kind of apology or how many apologies would suffice, but I will still try to because you all deserve it and more. 

To all this fic's readers, new and old, and even to those who have given up hope on this fic, I am truly sorry for all the disappointment, but I am also grateful. Every time I tried to come back to this fic, I see people still waiting and looking for me and your encouraging words and praises have also helped me to not give up on this fic and lose hope that I would ever finish it, despite all that time that has passed.

I can't begin to thank you enough for all the support you've given and I was shocked when I found out this fic even got featured. Thank you to everyone who congratulated me (Really, thank you. And, I am sorry. Again.)

I can only hope to try continuing this fic and see its end, but I can't blame anyone if you won't stick around. I'm doing it for you guys, but I'm also doing it for myself because I do love this fic and I like writing, even if it doesn't like me back.

Anyway, this has gone on long enough. I hope you are all doing well and that you're all safe and healthy, especially during this time. Extra precautions never hurt anyone and it's always better to be sure.

Once again, thank you. Please continue supporting and loving all the girls.