“There they are!” Namjoo pointed upwards, towards the bridge raising in front of them.

Bomi and Chorong were up there, standing in a close embrace that could be seen from the shore underneath the bridge. Hayoung shouted their names, and her unnies looked around confusedly before looking down at their members.

“Bomi-ah!” Eunji sounded mad while shouting, and Bomi knew that a lecture was coming from her best friend. “Get down here!”

Seconds later, Bomi’s worried thoughts became true.

“Yah! How dare you scare us like that?” Eunji was shouting, her eyes bright somewhere in between fury and fear. “Do you have any idea how scared I was? How scared we all were?”

“Eunji-ah…” Bomi started, Chorong tightening the grip on the girl’s hand. “I’m sorry. I really am. But, you know…”

“I don’t, okay? That’s the main problem here!” Eunji hugged herself with her arms as a way of finding comfort, her voice lowering its volume a word at a time. “You don’t tell me anything. How am I supposed to know how you feel? That you thought it best to skip the sessions instead of telling us? I can only guess.”

Eunji looked at her best friend, the other members disappearing from thought right then.

“I was so worried, Bomi-ah…” And the younger girl didn’t sound mad anymore. She sounded sad. And scared. Mostly scared.

“Unnie.” Eunji was pulled back into reality when Namjoo touched her arm to get her attention. “Unnie, look at that.”

Namjoo was pointing at the shiny ring on Chorong’s finger, so obvious in the dim light. When Eunji looked in the direction the girl was pointing, her eyes widened in shock.

“Wow.” she didn’t know what else to say right then. Following her stare, Hayoung and Naeun focused on the shiny ring as well, and a shocked kind of silence surrounded them all.

“Congratulations!” It looked like Hayoung was the only one hype enough to congratulate them with all her excitement. “I can’t believe this is really happening, unnies, this is so amazing!”

Chorong smiled at her dongsaeng, and Bomi hugged the maknae with her left arm.

“Congratulations, unnie.” Eunji looked at Chorong, whose eyes were beaming in joy, and then switched her gaze towards Bomi. “Bomi-ah. I’m happy for you, but that does not mean I don’t want to kill you right now. Do you have any idea how worried I was? I’m disappointed in you. I don’t want to, but we really have some talking to do.”

Bomi swallowed slowly, her eyes lowering to the ground. She felt itch, and her eyes become heavy, and she knew tears were about to fall. But she wouldn’t allow that.

“Let’s go home and talk, Eunji-ah.” Bomi looked at her best friend, biting her lip in embarrassment and apology. “I beg you.”

∼

The girls were sitting around their small, packed living room, silence dominating the atmosphere. Chorong was sitting next to Naeun on the couch, the latter holding her leader’s hand between hers and admiring the ring that Bomi had planted there.

“Are you happy, unnie?” Naeun was cute when she wanted, her smile lightening up her dark eyes.

“Oh, yes,” Chorong whispered back, the seriousness of the situation not invading her happiness. “Very happy indeed, no matter what.”

Naeun let her head rest against her friend’s shoulder comfortably, Chorong smiling in return. They were silently embracing themselves for the conversation that was about to start, not knowing whether they were totally ready or not.

That's when Eunji entered the room, her face completely neutral, not giving away her thoughts. She sat down right in front of Bomi, her shoulder against Hayoung's. When she sat down, the maknae whispered something in Namjoo's ear, since she was sitting right next to her, and the two blushed under Eunji's gaze.

“I can't believe you've all made me the villain here,” she said. “We were all mad that Bomi-ah had escaped without us knowing anything, but then we finally find her and you're all happy again?”

Bomi seemed to be decreasing in size, burying herself into the sofa.

“I can understand why Chorong-unnie is blinded by her happiness, and maybe the rest of you are too?” Eunji looked around.

As usual, it had to be the maknae who was bold enough to speak.

“Maybe we're just glad we found her.”

Silence followed Hayoung's statement, Eunji couldn't believe her ears had heard that from the maknae. Sometimes Hayoung's boldness was too much, not funny anymore.

“Yah, Hayoung-ah, don't speak like that to your unnie.” Chorong was there to reprimand her for her casual speech.

“Don't.” Eunji's eyes had changed, her expression had softened. “I'm sorry, Hayoung-ah, I guess I was taking this too personally.”

Hayoung nodded, accepting it, and mumbled an apology of her own to her unnie.

“I'm sorry, Bomi-ah, I'm also glad I found you,” Eunji tried to smile. “I'm glad you're okay.”

“No.” Bomi stood up. “Why are you apologizing? Could you all just stop? Let me talk for once. Please.”

Chorong looked at her now fiancée, confused. Bomi was obviously going to explain her reasons, but something else was going on. Naeun noticed the frown on Chorong's forehead and tightened her grip against her friend's hand.

“I am not planning on getting any more chemotherapy sessions,” Bomi began. “No, Eunji-ah, don't interrupt me. I have spoken to my doctor, and to other specialists, and I know my chances. Miracles don't exist. Not when we desperately want them, at least. We cannot choose when the Heavens will help us. But I'm not here to talk about God and His help. This is science. And there's nothing that can help me now. Doctors feel bad around me, they're desperate because they can't find anything to cure me, anything that will give back my health. Chemotherapy is a temporary thing. It is not helping, it is just making me last longer until it can't do anything else and my batteries will die.”

Bomi looked around, her members looking serious as she had never seen them before. But they also looked sad. And that hurt Bomi.

“Knowing all this, I have decided to stop with chemotherapy. My only wish now is to spend my time left in the best way I can. With you. With the people that matter most in my life. I owe you everything. And I am sorry, unnie.” She looked at Chorong, a guilty look on her face. “I am sorry that I asked you to marry me because that's a burden for you, in so many ways. But I needed to see you wear that ring, I needed you to say "yes" to my proposal.”

“Of course I said "yes",” Chorong interrupted her. “It is not a burden. No matter what, this is everything I've ever wanted, and we need to cherish these moments. I want to do this. I need to. And that's the truth.”

Namjoo looked at her unnie in awe. She was strong. And she was brave. Maybe too much for her own good.

“I don’t want you to die.” A soft voice, low but still hearable, changed the mood. The maknae had her head buried in her hands, her shoulders shaking slightly.

Seeing Hayoung like that broke Bomi's heart. This wasn't a "what if" anymore. It was a fact. She was going to die. And she was choosing this.

“I don’t want to die either.” Bomi kneeled in front of Hayoung, her hand resting on the girl’s knee. She sometimes forgot how young the tall girl was. How young they all were. “That’s why I want to live my days at their fullest.”

She stood up and looked at her friends. Her members.

“I am going to go to Jeju Island and live there,” Bomi said. “The memories we made there are the most important ones, and I have always said that I wanted to live there when I grew up…”

She sounded uncomfortable, afraid of her friends’ response, but it was time to spill everything.

“Unnie,” she looked at Chorong, a sad smile on her lips. “I’d like you to come with me. I’d like you all to come, but I think that’s too much for me to ask.”

The five girls stayed silent, considering Bomi’s words. That sounded like retiring, right?

“I’ll go.” Chorong lifted her gaze and locked her eyes with her fiancée’s. “After all, we’re engaged. There is no way we can be apart voluntarily.”

She held Bomi’s hands, pressure sending comfort to the younger girl.

“I’m not asking you to leave your lives behind,” Bomi whispered. “I’m not asking you to do anything for me, don’t worry. We’ll see where life takes us.”

Eunji smiled softly, staring right into her lap. She slid an arm behind Hayoung’s shoulders, comforting the maknae, while Naeun and Namjoo looked at Bomi like their lives depended on it.

“We will always be together, no matter what.” Namjoo smiled at her unnies. “We are Apink, after all. And that is forever.”