It was dark and cold. The place didn’t have much to offer to change her apparent dislike about being in there. It was too dense like being cramped in a small box, though the place was not a small box at all. It was big enough for her to breathe but she was having some mental trouble with inhaling oxygen. She walked inside, dropping hulking steps on the marble floors, turning on the lights, and sighing at every corner she passed by. There were lots of frames on the walls, pictures from old and recent memories. She looked happier in them but she gave them a spurn, pretended they didn’t exist. Once she entered another box, relatively smaller this time, she threw herself on the soft furniture face down, only bringing it up when she knew she would die in literal terms if she didn’t.

She was home, not Jungyeon’s home, not Rosie’s home, not Kyoto. She was at her real home, the home which she would only stay in for occasional times. Most times she would be in waiting rooms, studios, other people’s homes, and hotels. This place was probably the least used out of her things. It was just something that she bought because everyone else was buying their own. For investments, they said. She wouldn’t have been there at all that night if not for Rosie’s insistence that she go home and deal with her real life, the real life that she had been avoiding in the comforts of the younger woman, the real life that she especially didn’t want to be in on that specific day. She wanted to avoid that day in general. It was not the best day for her.

It was already nighttime when she arrived in her apartment, around 7 in the evening. Rosie drove her there to make sure she wouldn’t stop over at some bar and end up with another stranger the next morning. Rosie took so much care of her and she wished Rosie was there with her to take care of her again. The softness of her mattress was particularly inviting but she was still in her clothes from that afternoon and from the stains on her pillowcase she realized she also still had make up on. Rosie would throw a fit seeing her that way, on bed with her shoes and coat, and hat and makeup. She deemed it was best for her to proceed to her bathroom and put on something more appropriate for a boring night at home.

She wore her hair in a bun. The lack of bangs on her forehead made it seem larger, she thought as she looked at herself on her bathroom mirror. Having no bangs made her look older, but she wasn’t 20 anymore. She was nine years older. And on her body was a pink onesie which she received as a gift from one of those fans. Not those fans that stalked her but those good fans that were sane and understanding. She narrowed her eyes. You look ridiculous, Hirai Momo.

She strut to her kitchen, thinking about eating something again as eating was something she liked as much as dancing. Opening the fridge, she saw how there was only water. Of course, she never ate in her apartment as she was never home. So she went back to her bedroom but pausing her feet when she went through the many frames that she ignored earlier.

There were small ones. One of her and some fans, one of her and her sister Hana, one of her and her parents and their dog back in Kyoto. There were larger ones from her previous photoshoots and magazine covers, some portraits of her by fan photographers. At the end were her and her group, really old pictures mostly from their comeback showcases. There was one of them in their debut where she had blonde hair. That was her favorite hair color but the fans reportedly liked her more in brown which was why she let it stay that way ever since.

She studied one of these frames. This one had a photo taken not so long ago, three years ago perhaps. It was another group photo from when they all took a vacation in Bali. They were wearing huge smiles and colorful bathing suits which they weren’t really allowed to be seen in the conservative island of Korea. The photographed grins formed one on her face as she looked at it, making her reminisce of that time. On the far end of the photo was herself. She laughed seeing how hilarious her face looked, squinting terribly from the bright summer sun. But beside her, with her arm around her shoulder was another smiling figure and she had her eyes on Momo. Momo didn’t notice this. Mina was actually looking at her and smiling at her while being photographed. It was a great time, a memory she would cherish forever, but not on that night. She placed the frame back on the wall and went back to her bedroom.

***

The stillness of everything inside bothered her. The TV in front of her, the curtains, the door, the lights, all that wasn’t moving gave a clamorous effect on her which was strange but it was more strange because as she eyed each of them—the TV and everything else that was lifeless—it somehow called for her to do something she didn’t want to. She stayed in bed, on the center of the bed with her hands together with only her chest moving but even her bed felt like it was pushing her to get up and advance to wherever her bedroom was dictating her to.

For some unnatural reason, this was what her apartment did to her every time she was home. The quietness and the extreme tranquility of her surroundings almost sent a riot inside of her. An opposite, really. And this confused her and gave her imaginary headaches and this was why she preferred to stay somewhere else, somewhere else where she would be far from the voices she would hear. It wasn’t that she was going crazy, she knew she was still normal in terms of logic and reason but it was probably just her inner voice speaking to her through the objects of her home, her unconscious telling her to face the actuality of her existence that had been torn into a million pieces. She wasn’t schizophrenic. She was just keeping things inside of her that were striving go above the waters of her consciousness.

She decided to get up and silence everything around her. She sighed, walking up to the table in the corner to take the device that had been sitting there since she got home. She placed it there on purpose, far and on mute, so she wouldn’t be intruded on in that time of her piteous solitude. She grabbed it and pressed the unlock button to light it up. And there, she saw the reason why she was hearing things that night. 50 unread messages. She wanted to put it back and leave it for the rest of the night, for the rest of her lifetime if possible but she had a job that needed that phone like air, but that move only made her principles curious so she kept it in her hand and went to sit on her bed and read those 50 messages one by one.

About eleven of those messages were from this morning. The texts varied from asking her what time her Weekly Idol filming wou