Eunji awoke to thumping at her door. She was completely sober now, but her head throbbed heavily and her tongue tasted disgustingly of alcohol. The thoughts that had once been swimming freely in her mind were now ramming against the sides of her head, producing a headache unlike any other. The thumping at the door continued, and with her head pounding, it felt like whoever was knocking at the door was directly knocking their fist against the side of her head.

Groggily, Eunji checked the time on her phone. Eunji recoiled at the blinding light of the phone and had to blink several times for her eyes to adjust. When they finally did and she read the time, she immediately dropped her hand and groaned. Who the hell was knocking at her door at two in the morning?

She stood up in the dark, wavering slightly. Using the flashlight on her phone, she picked her way through the scattered cans of beer and cola. She briefly shined the light on Jieun, who was still soundly sleeping on the sofa. When she reached the door, she turned off the flashlight and slowly eased the door open, trying to be as quiet as possible.

The moment Eunji laid her eyes on the person on the other side of the door, every cell in her body froze. Her arms fell limp at her sides, and her face went slack.

Bomi stood in front of her, looking incredibly frazzled and out-of-breath. Her hair was in a loose, messy bun, and she was still in her pajamas. She hadn’t put her contacts in either; she was wearing her glasses. Under the dim glow of the lights outside, Eunji could see the pink tint in Bomi’s cheeks. It was her first time seeing her in four days.

“Eunji-ah, are you okay?” Bomi asked breathlessly.

“Why are you here?” Eunji asked, and Bomi recoiled at the coldness in her voice.

“You called me.”

“What?” Eunji furrowed her brows. “When?”

“About an hour ago. You sounded drunk.”

Immediately, Eunji lifted her phone and pressed the home button, revealing a screensaver that was very much not hers. She cursed and slipped the phone into her pocket. She had forgotten that she and Jieun had exchanged phones in order to prevent each other from doing something they’d regret. How effective that had been. It had worked for Jieun, but not Eunji, who must have somehow managed to type in Bomi’s number from memory.

“What did I say?” Eunji asked, slightly scared because she had no recollection of what she had done.

“Nothing, really. You were just mumbling random things that I couldn’t quite catch. At some points, I heard my name and the other members’ names. Whose phone did you call from, anyway?”

Eunji stepped aside and gestured to Jieun sleeping on the couch.

“Is that...IU-sunbaenim?”

Eunji nodded, then returned to her position in front of Bomi. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Hurt flashed in Bomi’s eyes. “I was worried.”

“You didn’t have to be.”

“You called me from a number that I didn’t know and sounded drunk out of your mind. You’re telling me that that shouldn’t have raised any red flags?”

Eunji hated that Bomi made a good point. “Sorry for making you worry, but I’m fine. You should go home.”

“Eunji-ah―”

“What do you want me to tell you, Unnie? That I was drinking to forget about the mess we’re in right now? To forget about what you did? How you betrayed our trust?”

Bomi only stared back with a bruised expression and parted lips.

Eunji sighed and placed a hand on the door. “Go home, Bbom-ah.”

“I’m sorry, Eunji-ah.”

“It’s too late for that, isn’t it?” Eunji said, drilling into Bomi’s eyes with a stony look. Bomi looked like she was on the brink of tears, and it went everything against Eunji’s gut to ignore it, but she did it anyways.

Bomi took a step back from the door, her hands slightly shaking at her sides. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

Eunji had to look away from Bomi’s heartbroken expression. “Goodbye, Bbom-ah,” she murmured and shut the door in front of the older woman’s face.

“You look horrible,” Naeun said the moment she sat down at the table.

Of all the things Eunji had expected Naeun to say to her, Eunji hadn’t expected that. But looking down at her outfit and back at Naeun’s, she supposed that Naeun’s comment was warranted. The younger girl was dressed in a long beige wool coat, grey turtleneck, and fitted black slacks that made her legs look longer than they already were. Eunji, on the other hand, had just thrown on an oversized sweater, jeans, and a hat. She should have expected that Naeun would wear something nicer, but to be fair, Eunji’s head had been pounding too hard for her to put together a decent outfit. Besides, Eunji knew that Naeun wasn’t critiquing her outfit; she was critiquing Eunji’s tired eyes and the dark circles under them. 

“Thank you, Naeunie,” Eunji replied wearily. “You look beautiful too.”

Naeun glanced at the mug of warm herbal tea in Eunji’s hands. “No iced Americano today?”

“It’s too cold for that today.”

Naeun smirked a bit. “I understand. Iced Americanos aren’t the best hangover cures.”

Eunji nearly choked on her tea. “How’d you know?”

“It’s never too cold for an iced Americano.” Naeun hooked her bag onto the back of her chair and opened up the menu in front of her. “Have you ordered yet?”

“Aside from my tea, no.” 

“Do you know what’s good here?”

“I heard their haejangguk is good.”

Naeun looked up from her menu, looking slightly amused. “Hangover soup. Of course.”

“In my defense, when we made lunch plans two days ago, I hadn’t been planning on being hungover.”

“You don’t plan on being hungover. It just happens.”

“Was that supposed to be a diss?”

Naeun shrugged. “Take it as you will.” She shut the menu and placed it to the side. “I’ll have the same thing as you. Who recommended this place to you?”

“Take a wild guess.”

Naeun didn’t even spare a second thinking before she answered, “Namjoo-ah.” 

Eunji confirmed her guess with a nod. Their waitress, a young, fresh-faced student, returned with two cups of water. She quickly took their order, then scurried off to attend to other tables. “They’re very efficient here,” Eunji commented when their waitress had left.

“It’s pretty busy right now, so that’s a good thing,” said Naeun. “Did Namjoo-ah recommend this restaurant recently?”

“No, I just remember her telling me about it around a month ago.” Eunji lifted her mug, the warmth of the tea heating her hand with its toasty embrace.

“Why didn’t you invite her too then?”

Eunji’s cup froze at her lips. 

“Why didn’t you invite the others, Unnie?”

She set her mug down, keeping her hands wrapped around it and finding relief in its warmth. She chuckled nervously, “Is it so wrong to want to have lunch with just you?”

“Of course not. But have you talked to the others lately?”

Eunji drummed her fingers on the side of her mug. “I’ve exchanged short texts with Hayoungie and Namjoo-ah. They’re dealing with their own things though, so we haven’t been able to have meaningful conversations.”

“Same here,” nodded Naeun. “And Bomi-unnie?”

Eunji kept her gaze down, studying the tea leaves at the bottom of her mug. “I haven’t talked to her.” She didn’t want to say that she had talked to Bomi last night and that everytime she closed her eyes, Eunji could see Bomi’s brokenhearted expression under the dismal lighting outside her house.

“Do you want to talk to her?”

“I don’t know,” Eunji answered truthfully. Even if she did try to talk to Bomi, what would she even say? She still didn’t know how to feel about the situation.

“It seems like you do,” Naeun said. “Seeing as how she was all you could talk about last night.”

Eunji tore her gaze from her tea and looked at Naeun with wide, confused eyes. Naeun stared back at her with level eyes. “What are you talking about?” Eunji asked.

“You called me last night around one in the morning.”

Eunji cursed under her breath. “I called you too?” If she had also called Naeun in addition to calling Bomi, had she called anyone else? How in the world had her drunk self been able to remember her members’ numbers? She wasn’t even sure if her sober self could do that.

“Too?”

“I also called my other friend,” Eunji said smoothly. “What did I say to you?”

“Well, I couldn’t really understand you that well, because your speech was heavily slurred, but the parts that I could understand were about Bomi-unnie. You said some things about being angry, sad, and confused about what to do about her. You also brought up Hayoungie and Namjoo-ah.” Naeun fiddled with the straw in her cup. “Then you started singing.”

“Oh, no,” Eunji mumbled.

“Oh, no indeed,” agreed Naeun. “For a main vocalist, you couldn’t seem to hit the right notes last night.”

“Did I say anything else?”

“Just some stuff about how you wished you had long, silky hair and long legs like mine. You said I was the most beautiful being to ever grace this world, and if you ever had a daughter, you’d want her to be exactly like me. Oh, and you also told me to remind you to give me the 20,000 you owe me.”

“I don’t owe you 20,000 won.”

Naeun shrugged her shoulders again. “Your words, not mine.”

Eunji narrowed her eyes. “The next time you get drunk, I’ll remember this.”

“Alright, alright,” Naeun laughed and held her hands up. “You got me. You shouted Bomi-unnie’s and Chorong-unnie’s name a lot. Something about not knowing what to do, being scared, and missing them. At one point, I think you started crying.”

“I cried?” Eunji blurted in disbelief. She believed and had expected the part about bringing up the other members, but she couldn’t believe the possibility that she had cried. It frightened her, its implications.

“It sounded like it. I got concerned, so I was about to head over, but you said that IU-sunbaenim was with you. You said that you were fine and needed to call someone else, so you hung up.”

Eunji dropped her forehead into her palms and groaned. Her hangover seemed to have gotten worse, the throbbing in her head having intensified tenfold. The person that she had called after was probably Bomi, and if she had truly been crying, then her conversation with Bomi must have been even messier. Of course Bomi would have left the comfort of her home to check on Eunji; Eunji would have done the same.

It suddenly hit her that she had probably woken Bomi up with her drunk call, and Bomi had gotten out of bed to drive herself to Eunji’s house. It had probably been miserably cold and dark outside, but that hadn’t stopped Bomi from coming.

Even after everything that happened, Bomi had come. And Eunji had shut the door in her face.

Eunji groaned even louder and pounded her palms against her head.

“That hangover is really killing you, huh?” Naeun asked softly. She watched Eunji with concerned eyes.

“It’s tearing me apart,” Eunji muttered.

“You can’t keep running away from it forever.” 

“I have the feeling you’re not talking about my hangover anymore.”

Naeun ignored her comment and pressed on, “You have to talk to her, Unnie. You have to face her.”

“Have you?”

“We all have our own demons to face.”

Eunji chewed her lip and looked down at her tea. She hadn’t realized how tightly her fingers had been clutching the mug; the tips of her fingers had turned white. “I don’t know if I’m ready.”

“Well, you’d better figure that out soon.” Naeun leaned back in her chair, circling her straw in her water. “If you keep running away from your issues, they might start running the other way. Then you’ll never be able to resolve them.”