“Are you sure you want to do this on your own?” The manager asked for the thousandth time. “You don’t have to announce it yourselves. The company can just make an official statement.”

“We’ve talked about this.” It was Chorong, in her position as leader, who stood up for her members. “We want to do it. We owe it to our fans; they’ve done so much for us… We owe them at least that.”

Chorong looked down after speaking. It was so sad to think about leaving them, leaving the fans with no more Apink to cheer on.

“Oppa…” Bomi had no trace of a smile in her face. “Can we be completely honest?”

The manager looked like he didn’t know exactly what the girl meant.

“Can we say why we are choosing to do this?” He nodded slightly, so Bomi continued. “Can we go public with our relationship?”

Now he looked shocked. Bomi felt Chorong holding her hand, giving her all her support, and she patiently waited for an answer. She knew it might be too much, but she wanted to go clean with her fans in every way she could.

“I’m not sure how they will react… How the press will take it,” the manager tried to be completely honest. “It might be too much.”

“I see,” Bomi said, and nothing else was said about it.

They looked worried; their manager looked worried. This was something they had never encountered before, and they were scared. How would the press react? But, more importantly, how would Pink Pandas react? They had been together for years, and this was something difficult to face.

“So, just like you asked, you’ll go on stage in front of the press and the fans at five this afternoon,” the manager said, and the girls all nodded in understanding. “You can go have something to eat now and go on location at 3.30 to get ready. I’ll drive you around today.”

Eunji nodded while looking at her unnies. Bomi and Chorong stared at each other, communicating with no more than her eyes. They hugged tightly then, and Bomi muttered soothing words in her girlfriend’s ear. The manager, who had never been a huge fan of this sort of affection at all, couldn’t help a sweet smile this time.

“C’mon, I’ll take you to your favorite restaurant in Hongdae,” he said, and Hayoung clapped in excitement. “Let me call my hyung so he comes with us.”

The vocal trainer, considered their second manager for the time being, was there shortly after, and the girls got into the van for what would probably be one of the last times.

∼

It was 3.30pm, and Apink was already in the waiting room, getting ready to go out. The fans were waiting outside; they had been told that Apink themselves would be making an announcement that afternoon and that they could all assist, together with the press.

“I don’t want this,” Namjoo said, rejecting her fake eyelashes. “We’re going there to connect with people and be honest, not to perform or feel fake. We are not hiding anything.”

The makeup artist nodded, and looked at the other members to see what they thought. When they all nodded, supporting Namjoo’s thoughts, the artist started to save things up that wouldn’t be needed. It wasn’t as usual; not anymore.

“I’m glad you girls think that way now,” she said with a smile, and Chorong mumbled a low ‘thank you’ while caressing Hayoung’s back.

“Are you girls ready?” The manager and the vocal trainer stood by the door. “You’re sure you want to do this? You’re sure you’re ready?”

We hope so. Chorong’s mind was crazy with nervousness. She nodded slightly and Bomi held her hand in comfort.

“Unnie, I love you,” she muttered in her ear, and Chorong blushed in love.

“Let’s do this,” the girls put their hands in the middle of the circle, and the leader counted to three before they all shouted a “fighting!” to give them enough strength. “We can do it.”

They walked out of the waiting room with their hands linked, being Apink in every sense they knew how. After a deep breath and a sign from the PD, they walked on stage one by one with shaking legs and heavy hearts.

The audience was silent when they came out, expectation in the air. It was so dark that the girls didn’t see anything from the end of the stage, only the flashes of the paparazzi at the end of the room. There was cheering when the fans saw them, but silence was quickly back, expecting.

“We’ve got something to tell you all,” Chorong spoke, her voice slightly cracking at the ending. Bomi was staring at her intensely, trying to transmit all the comfort she would with a hug. But it might be too much. Chorong looked right, and her eyes linked with her girlfriend’s. She swallowed and she found the courage to keep going. “We are incredibly grateful to our Pink Pandas and everything that they’ve done for us in these past years. We will never be able to give you back enough to thank you as you’d deserve.”

Some voices of disagreement raised throughout the audience, and Chorong smiled a little. As the leader, they had decided that Chorong would be the one speaking most of the time, explaining the situation, and then each girl would say some words of goodbye and thankfulness towards the audience. Chorong was slightly shaking at the beginning, but the support she was getting was all she needed, so she took a deep breath and lifted the microphone to continue.

∼

“How did it go?”

“Mom, you’ve watched it already! It was a live broadcast.”

Bomi was lying on her back on the bed, on the phone with her mother. After the statement they had rushed home, waiting for everyone to get the message and let the matter settle down a bit. The ride home was in complete silence, both the girls and the managers lost in their own thoughts. So when they arrived, they all seemed to find something to do that wasn’t talking to each other.

“But I want to know how you feel right now,” Bomi’s mom insisted. “I want to hear it from you right now.”

Bomi stayed silent for a few seconds, thinking about how she really felt.

“Mom…,” she started. “Honestly, I don’t even know how I feel myself. I am glad we were capable of making a decision and that we announced it publicly ourselves. Everyone deserved to hear it from us.”

“You know that’s not exactly what I’m asking.” Bomi thought that her mom reminded her a lot of Chorong sometimes.

“I’m sad,” Bomi blurted out. “I’m devastated, actually.”

Her mother didn’t make a sound at the other side of the phone, so Bomi knew that she was waiting for her to continue talking.

“Apink was my dream for more than half of my life. Being able to become something like Apink was everything I wished for,” Bomi said, her eyes wandering around her room and Chorong’s unmade bed, something so uncommon that it made her frown. But she continued. “After dreaming about something like this for so long, Apink became everything to me. They are my family, just like you are, mom. I can’t believe we just announced the end of our dream.”

Bomi was crying by then, but she knew she had more to say. And there was no one who listened as well as her mother.

“I feel… I feel like this is all my fault. And I know the girls don’t feel this way, and Chorong-unnie won’t stop repeating that, but I can’t help feeling that way. I wasn’t in favor of any of this in the beginning; they should’ve continued with their dreams. Being Apink was having every wish we ever had come true.”

Bomi had said something like that in front of the fans. Being part of Apink all this time has been making all my wishes come true. There is nothing comparable to it that I may ever experience, and I could never express my whole thankfulness to the staff, to the Pink Pandas who are here after everything and, above all, to the members, who are way more than a family to me. And I believe in “forever”, so I know for a fact that Apink is forever, no matter what.

“I am very sad because this is over, but I know they’ve chosen it for me and I know the memories of our time together will last forever, and I am infinitely thankful for that.”

“Bomi-ah.” Bomi’s mother seemed to think that her daughter was done speaking. “You don’t have to feel guilty about this ever again. Like you said, the members are the most important thing that you’ve got from this. They are the most important thing to you. And you are to them. You’ve been part of their dream and you always will, and now they’ve chosen what’s best for you because they love you. Just like I do.”

“I just didn’t want them to end their careers because of me. They can still accomplish so much… They have future dreams.” Bomi’s voice cracked, and she wiped the tears of her cheeks.

“You being healthy in the future is their dream now, and that’s what we all need. We need you. More than anything.” Her mom was completely serious. “We need you to go to chemotherapy so you can get better, we need you to be cheerful so we can all be stronger for you.”

Bomi nodded, and thanked her mother for the advice. After saying their goodbyes, Bomi stared at the ceiling, focusing on a spot there so her mind wouldn’t get clouded in thoughts and feelings.

“I don’t think you understand.” And there was Chorong standing right by the door, looking at Bomi like she was the most precious thing she had ever seen. “We are doing this for you, but we are doing this for us. I am nothing without you. Nothing. There’s nothing that matters most than you being healthy, being alive. So this is for you, and for me, for the members and for your family and for everyone that’s ever loved you because your life isn’t something individual. It is linked to so many more… And there’s no way you can untangle that.”

A/N. Special update! It's their anniversary, after all^^