“They’re crazy, unnie.”

An hour had gone by and Naeun and Eunji seemed to be the only ones awake. Sitting on a sand-dune as far as they needed for their voices not to be heard, they were just hanging out without doing absolutely anything except mention the drunken state of their friends every once in a while.

“You know Bomi-ah is starting chemotherapy today, right?” Eunji said with a sad smile, looking at Naeun in her eyes. “She’s just acting like this to forget it all.”

“Is she even allowed to drink?” Naeun asked, concern on her forehead.

“She is, every once in a while,” Eunji replied. “Like everyone else, I guess. So I have nothing to say. It’s her own health, after all.”

Naeun stared at her.

“We both know that you don’t feel that way.”

Eunji stared back, but she couldn’t hold Naeun’s gaze and moved her eyes towards the sea.

“You’re right,” she spoke softly, “but I’ve heard Chorong-unnie and Bomi-ah argue about this enough times to know that there’s nothing that I can say that will help her. I don’t know what to do.

Naeun was about to reply when Namjoo and Hayoung approached them, looks of exhaustion on their faces.

“How are you feeling?” Eunji patted the sand next to her so the maknaes would sit down.

“My head aches,” Namjoo said. “But I’m pretty sure that I am still too happy for this to be normal. I feel like jumping around and dancing in my underwear right here and now.”

“Oh, please, don’t,” Hayoung said with disgust on her face, but she suddenly burst out laughing, which made Eunji sigh and smile after that.

Naeun and Eunji shared a look, but the other two girls were too wasted to think properly at those times of night.

“Where do you think the lobster is right now?” Hayoung asked in complete seriousness, her eyes locked in the dark sea. “Do you think she’s alright? She should start a family with some gentle male lobster and have lots of baby lobsters.”

Namjoo rolled her eyes but nodded at Hayoung’s idea.

“That would be so cute!”

“I can’t believe we’re talking about having some cute baby lobsters,” Naeun lifted her gaze to the sky.

“No one said they had to be cute,” Hayoung added.

“I can’t believe you just said that,” Chorong added up to the conversation when she reached the place where her dongsaengs were.

Eunji looked at the leader and smiled, apparently seeing a more focused Chorong than the one she had encountered earlier.

“Let’s leave Bomi sleeping for a longer while,” Chorong said. “She has a very long day ahead of her.”

“It’s been a long night for all of us,” Naeun muttered under her breath.

∼

Bomi was a mere viewer.

Chorong was sitting on her favorite armchair in her room back in Jeju Island. The armchair, which was more of a sofa that had become a rocking chair, was in a corner, right next to the bedside table and the bed. The table was empty except from a pale envelop that said her name, and there was a bump on the bed, a pale figure of blankets and cushions that dominated the four-post bed.

The room was cold and smelled like hospital, even though Bomi was certain that it was the house in Jeju. She could see Chorong with her head buried in between her arms, her fragile shoulders shaking with sobs. Something seemed to call the leader’s attention, because Chorong raised her head and looked towards the bed. She stood up, walking one step at a time, and only then did Bomi realize that there was no bump on the bed. There was a someone, with their face towards Chorong’s side of the room and their back towards Bomi. Chorong leaned forward to look at the person’s face, and her knees failed her and she ended up kneeling on the ground, her sobs now screams of pain and despair.

Bomi couldn’t take it anymore. She walked towards Chorong, shouting at her so the girl would look at her, but there was no response. She fastened her steps, but there seemed to be an endless distance to get to her, and there was nothing Bomi could do to catch Chorong’s attention. But somehow, the distance ended up getting smaller after Bomi almost panicked. She walked towards Chorong and kneeled down besides the girl, who was sobbing and crying tears of anger and pain. No words of comfort seemed to have an effect on the leader, so Bomi raised her head to encounter the object of so much pain.

That’s when she saw her own face lying on the bed, her lifeless eyes staring blankly at the white ceiling, still orbs that showed how life had been drained of that same body. Bomi’s body.

She woke up screaming.

The scream of Chorong’s name was of a piercing sound, and it seemed to shake heaven and earth in the share of her despair.

Bomi looked around, her whole body shaking and warm tears of fear falling down her cheeks, but Chorong was nowhere to be found. The girl sat up, another scream trapped in , threatening to escape in search of the older girl. The panic Bomi felt in that moment, the feeling of being helpless and, even worse, being alone, was the worst experience of her life. It felt like she was the one whose life had been drained of her body. And that there was nothing – and no one – that could save her.

∼

The scream that pierced the air was enough for the five girls to freeze in spot. Eyes open in shock, mouths open in the middle of the sentence; they were frozen.

The first one to react was Chorong, her heart sending an electrical signal across her body and the spirit of survival activing her brain. Bomi. The speed with which she ran to her girlfriend was something no one had seen in her before. The sun was starting to appear in the horizon, but no light was needed for her to find Bomi. Their souls were linked and they would always find each other.

In the moment of that scream, any drop of alcohol that Chorong had left in her body disappeared completely, like the tide had swept them away forever. Her thoughts were apparently clear, but the image of a screaming Bomi – of a Bomi in any sort of pain – was clouding her mind while she ran towards her.

Someone may have thought that she was running for her life, and they wouldn’t be wrong. Bomi was her life.

“Bomi-ah?” Chorong hugged the girl tightly, her arms bringing Bomi into an embrace while trying to stop her from shaking. “Bomi-ah?”

Bomi wouldn’t stop crying, and Chorong’s heart broke with every tear. How could her Bomi be so scared?

“Bomi-ah?” Chorong knew her. “You have had another one of your night terrors, haven’t you? Oh, Bomi-ah…”

Bomi was looking at her now, her arms around Chorong like she was the life-preserver she needed to remain alive.

“U-unnie…,” she muttered. “You we-weren’t… You weren’t here…”

Chorong couldn’t help her tears then. Why had she left, anyway? She had promised Bomi to always stay with her in case anything happened. In case Bomi needed her. And the girl had obviously needed her when she woke up.

“I’m sorry, Bomi-ah… I’m here now. I’m here.” She continued to hug Bomi and buried her face in the girl’s shoulder, hiding her tears. She was scared too.

“Unnie?” Hayoung’s alarmed voice interrupted them. Chorong raised her head and saw her four members around them, all showing equal looks of concern and fear.

“Bomi-ah?” Eunji looked scared, and Naeun linked their hands to comfort her.

None of the girls seemed drunk anymore. The lobster had been completely forgotten and Bomi was everything they could think about. None of them said it out loud, but they all knew what Bomi’s nightmare had been about, and they couldn’t say that that hadn’t been haunting their dreams as well.

“It’s okay,” Chorong answered, trying to believe it herself. “Everything’s going to be okay. We are all going to be okay.”