CHAPTER NINE

When we arrived at the rented house, there was a forgotten beer on one of the shelves in the fridge. I have no idea how long it was there, but it was what I looked for when we got back from the TV studio. It was an awkward, silent ride inside the kombi. It didn't even look like they had made it to the next stage of the competition. It seems like was as if the opposite had happened. They looked defeated.

I felt that way too.

After the confusion in the waiting room, we were taken to another room to sign a different contract authorizing our participation in the second phase. It took a while for us to read everything, even though Sehun got one half and I got the other to read. We needed to make sure there wasn't any kind of trap between the lines. Sometimes I had to ask my cousin what a particular term meant, the last thing we needed right now was to sell our souls without knowing it. Other than that, the silence stretched until we reached Huam-dong after I'd drained half of the bottle from the first drink in the kitchen.

I could see how guilty they felt. They barely looked at me. It was like this during the confinement inside the kombi and it was like this inside the house.

“You guys need to swallow your pride as much as I'm swallowing this beer,” I said looking at the label that said it was a vegan beer. I didn't know there was a vegan beer. "It doesn't taste good, but it's still a win."

“Doesn't feel like a victory at all,” Sehun said wearily.

“Most of the time things don't go the way we want. For example, I didn't want to hear it from Wendy's mouth that she was in this band, but... Yay! I know now."

I lifted the bottle towards them. It was a toast full of mockery, with a little hurt. I finished off the bottle with another long drink, hoping the contents would numb me a bit. And fast.

“She was my best friend.”

Sooyoung finally looked in my direction. If I hadn't drunk all the liquid in that bottle, I would certainly have choked on that information.

“Actually,” she continued, “she was more my sister than my sister.”

I knew Sooyoung had a sister, she had commented about her a few times. From what I understand, Sooyoung is older and the two have similar personalities, which must be terrible at home. The few times she mentioned such a sister, she claimed that she was too clingy. And every time, Sehun countered by saying that she and Sooyoung were cute and that was the “common personality” between the sisters. Needless to say, this triggered a rage in Sooyoung, who endlessly denied that it was true. She ended by saying that she and her sister only had a love of food in common, nothing more.

“We met long before the band started,” Sooyoung headed towards the fridge, “and I'm going to drink all by myself.”

She took a green bottle out of the fridge. It was a cheap brand of cider, the kind that comes in a plastic bottle. I think they bought it to celebrate today, and now Sooyoung was removing the cap without spilling a single drop.

“They met when Sooyoung transferred into the senior class at school. The first time,” Taemin clarified.

Meanwhile, I watched Sooyoung take a sip of the bubbly liquid directly from the bottle and head toward the room. I immediately went towards the same place, seeing that she occupied the entire sofa. I had no option but to sit on the floor facing her but at a good distance. She was willing to tell the story, I would stick myself to the ceiling if I had to just listen. The boys came moments later, each carrying a can of beer. Sehun handed me one before speaking.

“It was so funny that little thing stuck to Sooyoung's leg.”

"Shut up!" Sooyoung fumed.

"She was a toddler who could only say 'Soo-ah' despite being a year older than us."

“I would also be scared to speak around three weird boys like us,” Taeyong couldn't hold back his laughter as he spoke.

It was impossible not to imagine a miniature version of Wendy, dressed exactly as she was today in the studio, glued to the leg of a less grumpy Sooyoung than she is now. Even so, the atmosphere was still tense and I tried to hide the involuntary smile at the scene playing in my head.

Sehun and Taemin had been studying with Sooyoung since kindergarten, only detaching when she transferred to the senior class. It was there that she met Wendy, their friendship happened in the first week of school. The following year, when Sooyoung jumped back into another older class, they continued to meet after school. Wendy would interact with the boys, with the addition of Taeyong to the group, when Sooyoung would watch the boys' soccer practice. They talked after practice, but Wendy was silent most of the time and shyly said goodbye when someone from her family came to pick her up at the school gate. This went on for two years, until the bright idea of ​​starting a band and Sooyoung decided that Wendy would be the vocalist.

“Even a deaf person knew she had a unique voice,” she explained after drinking a sizable amount of liquid from the bottle. “We insisted… I insisted for months until she finally agreed to join the band.”

 “Did you stop singing when she joins it?”

“I never sang,” she replied looking at me a bit confused, “Not until she left.”

“No,” I insisted. That wasn't making sense. “I remember you singing at that first rehearsal of yours. It was horrible, but it was you.”

"Unnie, it was her," Sooyoung stated more rudely this time, it was a request to end this part of the story. “I never sang that day. I was learning guitar together with Sehun,” still, I couldn't understand that information.

“Are you saying that you thought it was Sooyoung singing this whole time?” Taemin asked me. He was sitting on the drum bench that was set up in the middle of the room since there was nothing in the room beyond the sofa.

"I was at my favorite singer's first rehearsal and I don't remember?" I asked still confused, my mouth was open and I looked at them hoping someone would help me out of that mess.

“Wait a sec,” Sehun got up from the ground, his voice louder than necessary. He was holding back from laughing at the situation. “You don't remember Sooyoung and, ironically, she's your favorite person in this band!”

“This is brutal,” Taemin commented joining Sehun with the laughter that escaped.

“It's not like that,” I tried to explain, “Sooyoung, I swear! I remember you-"

“Memories can be deceiving,” Taeyong cut me off, surely trying to help me. “Sometimes our brain fills in gaps in our memories and they are not very reliable. You probably thought it was Sooyoung singing because, after many years of not seeing us playing, she was the vocalist of the band.”

I looked at Sooyoung with pleading eyes, hoping she wouldn't be upset about this. “That must be it,” I said.

“I don't know whether to be offended or not,” she began with nonchalance in her voice. “On the one hand, you have the wrong memory of me, on the other hand, you don't remember her. I will take this as a victory.”

I sighed in relief. I should be upset about the whole situation we