“Yewon… you’ll be transferred to the US. We’ve already discussed this and we have contacted a middle school having the same curiculum as your current school”

As her mother was explaining their plans to her, she couldn’t stay still. Firstly, because she will transfer to the US. But what surprised her more is that she’ll transfer to another middle school there. Middle school? Yewon is already competent enough for a university but middle school?

Upon hearing her mother finish, she jumped out of her bed and rushed to her bathroom. Her gut-feel was right, it wasn’t just nostalgia for she traveled back to her middle school days.

“Yewon?”

Her mother called her worryingly.

“Mom, what is happening?”

The girl couldn’t keep her jaw shut.

“What do you mean?”

When she looked at her mother’s expression, her knees weakened and she fell.

“Yewon!”, her mother caught her in her arms.

“Mom, I can’t go there. I must stay here”, she must or else she won’t be street-casted. She won’t be a part of Gfriend.

“Yewon…”

Umji was shaking her head vigorously, attempting to change her mother’s mind. Maybe if she will explain about her future self, her mother will let her stay. But what if time paradox will take effect? She was a smart kid, but now she couldn’t make use of equations or arguments to arrive to an answer. She was going crazy.

“Yewon, let’s stand up and go back to your bed… you might feel better”

“No- no … no mom. Please, I cannot go there. Let me stay here”, she was crying while latching onto her mother’s legs, but she soon broke off when her mother didn’t budge even a bit. It was painful for her mother to see her youngest act like that, but they knew they had to transfer her. ‘Her act today may be because of her bullies… that’s the psychological burden that they put onto her daughter’, that’s what she thought.

While the situation went on for some time,  at the dorm, Yuju awakens from her slumber. Looking around the room, she notices that everyone was still asleep, the Ye-sisters and SinB next to her. She stood up and saw Eunha lying on the floor. She ran to her and held her body close, terrified to feel her cold. Eunha’s temperature was dropping at a rate almost enough to freeze her in the next few seconds.

“What on earth is this…”

Despite her panicking heart, her exterior remained calm. After an exchange of inhales and exhales, she placed her ear at Eunha’s chest, checking if her heart’s still beating. Thankfully, it was.

She aided the woman’s cold body towards the couch, placing her together with the other members.

Outside was a storm, the winds dancing, hitting the glass windows of their dorm, Yuna could hear them beat to the rhythm. Along with every hit, the rain kept on falling and slamming harder against the walls and the ground. The happenings outside made Yuju’s knees tremble, it was as if the storm was telling her everything will be more difficult from now on. But just like the rain, Yuna reassured herself that this will pass.

She went inside Sowon’s room only to see nothing. Their leader’s physical body was gone. Yuju didn’t lose hope, and searched further but to no avail, even her astral body was nowhere to be found.

Dropping to the floor, Yuju was sweating beads. She has no idea where her unnie could possibly be. There’s no other way for her to find out but proceed to astral projection.

It scares her -- the fact that she has to do it, but in order to keep Gfriend intact is to gather everyone, and so she began to relax. Breathing slowly, focusing on her mind, Yuju was falling into deep concentration. She began imagining her astral body being pulled out of her physical body. She could feel the vibrations.

Yuju was almost done when she heard the doorbell ring. Her concentration suddenly gone, and her attempt to do voluntary projection has failed.

She wasn’t sure of the time because of the current weather conditions, but who could the visitor be? Is it their manager? ‘But he went to a personal trip’, she argued with her thoughts.

Tiptoeing, making sure she won’t be producing any unnecessary noise -- who knows, the ones knocking could be a robber or murderer of some sort.

She looked into the peek hole, wanting to find out who on earth is the person behind the door. Upon seeing the person, she retreated, not knowing how to react.

“Why is he here?”, she whispers to herself while biting her fingers.

She took another glimpse of the person, just to confirm once again. After doing so, she ran to the living room, slowly carrying everyone one-by-one to the unnies’ room. They were heavy but thanks to adrenaline rush, she successfully crried them.

Before opening the door for the person, Yuju combed her hair and put on some light make-up. The timing was pretty messed up, but she has to be pretty or at least presentable.

Completely forgetting the time, she finished in 20 minutes or so, that when she came back to get the person, the latter was already gone.

“What on earth am I doing at this time?”, she slightly knocked herself upon realizing how foolish her actions were.

As she entered the room filled with the rest of the members’ bodies, she released a deep sigh. Examining her members, the reality hit her so much.

“Is this the exchange for me asking to be free from my own nightmares?”, the lady asked as if someone could answer her. She could only laugh at the misery she’s going through.

As she was completing her routine by staring at her friends and at the ceiling and back at them and the ceiling, she heard a beep. Upon checking her phone, she realized the sound didn’t come from her, but from the phone that she picked earlier — it was Eunha’s.

She knows her password, because Eunha wasn’t really the careful type when encoding her password. Anyone with keen and fast eyes would be able to see and memorize the slow taps of Eunha’s chubby fingers when writing her password.

She knows as well, that what she’s going to do would be an invasion to her privacy. However, Yuju disregarded that fact and considered the details that may be contributing to the betterment of the story inside their group.

A snippet of the long message read, “Miss Jung Eunbi, the laboratory results have come out. Just as we suspected, the LCH is gradually coming back to your system. For the full details, you may come here personally. We will guarantee a safe check-up wherein no fans, no family, no friends and not even your agency will be able to know about your case. Thank you”.

Reading the text message brought tears to Yuju’s eyes. They never knew about Eunha’s check-ups, she never knew. She even wondered why she would skip practice every Thursday afternoon. Now, everything made sense to her, but it made her feel even more guilty. She remembered how Eunha approached her last Friday, as if she wanted someone to talk to, she wasn’t feeling that good at that time so she somehow ignored her. She did apologize later, but she noticed that Eunha didn’t seem the same way after, not to mention, she grabbed her neck her in the morning. Yuju could only embrace the cold figure of her friend, while slowly drowning in her own tears.