‟chapter seven

Yongsun woke up extra early that morning even though their schedule was supposed to start later during the noon. When she first found out that their promotions would be overlapped this time around, she had been frantic and anxious about it for weeks until she found out that he would not be promoting at music shows. It was even more ridiculous to her that she’d actually be upset over that news, perhaps she really wished she could at least bumped into him in the hallway although they weren’t going to acknowledge each other’s presence anymore. So when, she was told that they were going to be on Cultwo show together today, Yongsun wasn’t even sure if she was even excited or nervous anymore. Parts of her prayed that they’d start filming as quickly as possible, and parts of her deadly wished this wouldn’t actually happened. 

They haven’t talk for ages ever since their last schedule together last year, and she was so sure Eric would still be mad at her, but she wouldn’t really blame him. It’d be more surprising if he wasn’t mad at her, but the very thought didn’t stop her from what she was currently doing. Four days ago was his birthday, and every single year ever since wgm, she had been scrolling through every news site and social media on his birthday and silently wished him a very happy birthday all to herself because she didn’t have the courage to contact him again. But this time, she was given the opportunity to make up for her lost chances and Yongsun tried as hard as she could to gather every existing courage inside of her to celebrate it a bit more properly this time around. She knew it was a stupid move, and she knew he won’t even accept it, but she still wanted to do it. 

She stayed up really late last night at the baking school she went with her sister for one of their solarshido challenge, so she could baked a cake for him and now it’s safely stored somewhere in her fridge that she hoped she won’t actually forget about. Yongsun knew from his recent interview that he’s a lactose intolerant, so she made sure she was substituting the normal milk for a lactose-free milk instead. There were so many things she wished she had known about him back then - for example, him being allergic to mango but still went out of his way to drive around and search for a mango juice store and drank it with her during their Jeju trip, and him being allergic to apple yet still ate a few pieces with her several time during the filming. He did so much for her back then, and this time she was never going to forgive herself if she accidentally used normal milk instead of lactose-free for his birthday cake.

It’s 5am in the morning, and she’s in the kitchen of her apartment cooking up seaweed soup she had been practicing every single day for a whole week. Yonghee has been complaining nonstop that she’s so sick of seaweed soup that she even tried to eat outside after finishing her works before she came back home just so she wouldn’t have to eat Yongsun’s seaweed soup again. It didn’t taste that bad, but the daily seaweed soup for menu was ruining her appetite even by the mention of it. 

At 6:30am, Yonghee walked into the kitchen half-asleep and grimaced at the scent of seaweed soup filling the entire kitchen to their living room. Pretending to yawn, she brought her hand over to her face to cover her nose so her younger sister would’t be too offended. 

    “Do you need help?” She asked.

    “It’s fine.” Yongsun said as she continued to stirred the boiling soup in front of her. “Go and get ready for work, you’re gonna be late.” 

    “Are you making it for us as well?” 

    “No.” Yongsun replied, her attention moved to her sister and she smiled reassuringly. “I know you’re sick of seaweed soup.” 

    Yonghee rubs the back of her neck and offers her a guilty smile. “I’ll get ready real quick, then I’ll take care of our breakfast, hm?”

Yongsun nodded, glad that Yonghee is the one who can cook among them. They both would either starve to death or went broke from ordering or eating out if her older sister didn’t know how to cook as well. Byul always that it was funny, because Yonghee is also the one who seems to possess all the housewife traits and the brains. Although Yongsun wasn’t entirely pleased with her teasing, she had to agree that her sister was definitely the smarter one as well - after all, she’s majoring in a design field that Yongsun couldn’t even remember what it was specifically. But she’s not complaining, she might not have one trillion braincells like Yonghee does, but at least she still has Byul who also shared the same number of braincell as she does. 

Three hours before she was due to leave her house, Yongsun opened her wardrobe to three different colors of the same oversized jumper dress that she got when she went shopping with Yonghee a few weeks ago. Although her older sister was strongly against her buying it, because even my pajamas look better than that dress, Yongsun still got it in every color available just to be all covered up for her promotion this time around - black for any typical days, gray for a special day, and pink for an even more special day. Naturally, she reached for the pink one then simply put her hair into a low bun. 

Thirty minutes before the recording starts, Yongsun tried to keep her eyes on Eric so she could sneak up to his manager when he’s not around. Fortunately enough, he was called into the studio to get his in-ears on first, so she rushed as fast as she could to hand over the soup and cake she prepared to his manager. 

    “Please just leave these in the car for him.” 

When they went out to the studio, she saw him handing his albums to the radio hosts and she waited until he took a seat to walk over to the hosts as well - just in case she bumped into him and made things even more awkward than it already was. Yongsun turned around to go to her usual seat next to Byul, but instead was grabbed by Wheein who pushed her to sit next to Eric. Yongsun made a face at her, trying to mouth that she can’t, but the girls pushed her into the seat telling her to just sit there. She caught Eric’s eyes, and mentally cursed her members out for making things more awkward than it already was. 

Yongsun could almost swore that was the longest forty-five minutes of recording she had to go through. Throughout all of it, she prayed and prayed that no one would mentioned wgm to either of them, and she tried her hardest to be comfortable but she knew by now, the whole world already knew how awkward they were next to each other. 

When the girls happily sang his song to congratulate him for topping the charts, she found herself frozen, unable to utter even the slightest congratulations out loud. When he sang his song, her eyes scanned over the translation of the lyrics on the monitors in front of them, and parts of her broke because somewhere in the back of her mind, she had an instinct that it was about her. Anyone could say otherwise, but she was almost a hundred percent sure that the lyrics were about her, but there was nothing for her to do others than trying to pretend that it didn’t hurt. 

At one point, she caught his eyes while he was singing, and he looked away almost immediately. Her heart dropped, he was indeed talking about her. Byul would occasionally stole a glance at her way just to check on her, and Yongsun would returned her back a nod, reassuring her that she’d be alright. But she barely held onto her own composure when the hosts tried to get him to admit that the lyrics were from his recent experience. 

    “We’re asking because you wrote and composed this song by yourself. Are you dating someone?” 

Eric laughed a panic kind of laugh. Yongsun didn’t have to turn around to look to know that her members were just as anxious as her as they grew quiet. When he answered that he’s not, the girls broke into a rather relieve laugh that Yongsun wasn’t even sure what were they laughing in relieve for. It’s not like it’s going to work out between them even if he’s not seeing anyone else. 

Her heart sank whenever he tried to sit as far as he could from her. Sometimes, he’d scooting closer to the female host instead, and sometimes he’d subtly pushed his chair backward further from her so he’d be sitting a noticeable distance from her. And some other times during breaks, he’d be scrolling quietly through his phone instead of talking to her until the breaks were over. She noticed it all, but Yongsun tried to play it cool and pretended that she was okay in front of her members.

Her heart dropped even more when he left as soon as the recording was over, without even looking in her way. As soon as they were done posing for a group photo, he walked away from her only to bump into Hyejin, leaving him no choice but to greet her good bye before leaving the studio immediately. Yongsun sighed, the heavy feeling inside her was getting to her and she forced herself to hold back her tear. 

On their ways out, Byul had her arms around her shoulders protectively. For once, the younger girl felt the whole weight of her leader in her arms even though she was walking and forcing a smile to their fans. Tightening her wrap around Yongsun’s arms, she tried to lead her to their van as quick as possible. 

Byul held onto her tightly when she broke down in their van. Her heart wrenched as she heard Yongsun whimpered and tried to bit her own lips in an attempt to stop her own crying. Her body trembled, and it broke Byul’s heart to see how fragile and vulnerable the person who was always the brightest among them is right now. Maybe she shouldn’t have try to reconcile them back together back then, maybe this would all never happened and Yongsun would never be this hurt if she didn’t try to get Eric’s number back for her back then. They were both moving on just fine respectively, they were both just getting their lives together and moving forward just fine, and yet she ruined them both because she was out of her boundary in trying to help. Byul closed her eyes, trying to hold onto her own tear as Yongsun continued to whimpered in her arms. 

    “I’m sorry.” Byul mumbled, her voice cracked as she bit onto her lips to stop herself from crying as well. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have turned things like this for you guys.” 

The two youngest only watched on helplessly, feeling completely useless that they could’t help out. Yongsun has always been the brightest, she has always been the one to listen and help them, she was always the one with the biggest smile on her face, and to see someone like her looking this vulnerable in front of them broke their hearts. 

    Wiping her own tear, Wheein whispered just loud enough for Hyejin to hear. “If this is how much love hurts, I don’t ever want to be in love.” 

hello everyoneeeeee;
i'm so sorry i took a very long absence ;-; last few months had been very messy and stressing, so i decided to take a little break to try and reorganize everything, but now it's all going a lot better so i've decided to return to aff and continue writinng ;;;;;; i'm so sorry for making you wait for so long :(
and yesss, i've also seen ddongie reunion in cultwo show recently and it did inspired me to write sth again, and because of that, it might be confusing to you guys. previously this story had until 10 chapters, but for now i'll be hiding the previous chapter 7-10 (for now), and add a new chapter 7 and 8 before reuploading the rest of the previous chapters again so it'd be less confusing for you guys. i also thought of making a new fic, but i didn't want to end this fic just yet, and somehow their recent reunion also fit this storyline very well so i decided to make this decision. i hope it's not confusing you guys, and thank you so muchhhhh for always being so kind and lovely with all the comments and feedbacks. i really appreciate it a lot, i hope you'll enjoy reading this chapter as i've enjoyed writing it. have a nice dayyy♡