End of an Era.

Some people think that it’s holding on that makes one strong, sometimes it’s letting go” – unknown.

The loss of love is not nearly as painful as our resistance to accepting it is” – Tigress Luv.

“So, do you want to explain to me why I’m in your kitchen at 1AM when I have a schedule in… five hours when I could be in my bed, sleeping?” Daesung asked, running his hands through his hair, longer and unkempt.

I grinned at him, holding a packet of flour in one hand and a bowl in the other.

“You said you enjoyed cooking. And you also said you enjoyed spending time with me. You’re doing both, it’s your lucky day”

He snorted, raising his eyebrows and took the bowl from me, putting it on the table.

“I enjoy cooking, not baking. They’re two completely different thing, you idiot!”

Rolling my eyes, I ignored him and went on to get other ingredients from the cupboards, knowing that he was following my every movement. I glanced back quickly, just in time to see his eyes darting up and down on me, I turn around and smile, flattered.

“Seriously, Sooyeon, what is this about? The sudden change to Miss Rainbows and sunshine, and baking? Since when do you even bake?”

Shrugging, I searched up a recipe on my tablet and looked through pictures of cakes, cupcakes but everything seemed so complicated, I couldn’t understand the words, between sifting, stiff peaks and blanch, my mind was blank.

“What does this even mean?”

“I’m a guy, you’re the one that’s supposed to know all this!” I threw him a glare and the question why did I even think he’d be useful? Was on my mind.

“ist ” I say under my breath, loud enough for him to hear.

“Oh, did you just say I was y? Jung Sooyeon!”

It had been a couple of weeks since Nagoya and we were back to Seoul for a few days but back to Japan again then, to complete our tour. Things were crazy and hectic, like they always are but different, because since our cinema hang-out, because it really wasn’t a date, Daesung and I had gotten inevitably closer, if everything before was through text or calls, now we’d do our best to each other face to face, or even Skype. Funnily enough, our schedules seemed to permit us to do so. Texts now were different, always playful but they always had a hint of flirt, nothing outrageous because I was never that outspoken but just little hints. It was dangerous the way he made me happy, even just with a “hey sooyeon-ssi J” , it was scary the effect and the turnaround he could do to my day but I didn’t think about it because I was sure that if I started to think, I’d find millions of reasons of why I didn’t deserve such a person in my life, ruining everything.

“Daesung-ah?” I called him.              

“Hm?”

“Thanks for coming”.

***

“Things are weird between the members Dad, what do I do? I mean, I don’t even know what happened, we just… don’t talk anymore”

“Why don’t you guys talk then? Sit down and talk, for hours if you have to. You know, sometimes people speak to each other every day, they see each other for so long that they forget to talk”. Remember that time where I got so busy with the business that the only thing I could say to all of you was ‘good morning’? And your mother forced us to go on a holiday with no phone and no internet?”

I smiled at the memory, one of my favourites. On that holiday, we had so much fun with being just us and being together with nothing worrying us. It was the time where I first debuted and we took a long break, our family was on the verge of falling apart, with everyone being isolated, Soojung training, me at home or with the members, dad always at work and coming back tired and mum spending her days in bed, lonely and sad because of her miscarriage.

It affected all of us but we coped in different ways and we didn’t realize that we were all hurting each other by not being there for each other when we needed it the most.

“What, just lock ourselves into a room? I can’t guarantee who’d kill me first, Taeyeon or maybe all seven of them, plus manager Oppa”

“Why seven? Am I getting old?” he frowned, turning around to look at me.

“Seven because Seohyun wouldn’t kill me, she’s against murder. And spending years in prison isn’t one of her top priorities at the moment… and you are getting old too”

Laughing, he smiled, his face brighter at the mention of our youngest member, Seohyun.

“Sweet Seohyun, always my favourite” he nodded, smiling.

“Well, you’ll be glad to know that my favourite in this family has always been mum”

It was strange, but Dad and Seohyun had always got on, in a different way than he and the other girls did. They had a bond, one that no one else could understand as much as they tried. It was based on respect, for some reason or another Seohyun had my dad’s trust and vice versa. I used to catch them having coffee when I went home at times and they’d be immersed in a full on conversation about the latest government move or who won the latest tennis match, things he wouldn’t be able to discus with me or Soojung which made me glad that he could do that with Seohyun.

There were times where I’d be jealous, thinking and questioning, did my own Dad like a member better than me? But as I grew up, I understood that he needed someone else to talk to, a daughter that he could talk such topics about but I still enjoyed teasing him about it.

“If you love your mum so much, why don’t you go and ask her for advice? I’m busy cooking here, go” he waved his hands, shooing me out of the kitchen.

“Oh, SOOJUNG!” he called me, I stuck my head out.

With a sneaky smile and a knife in his hand, he said “I want to meet that guy of yours, the blondie, yeah?”

***

“Dinner& Sleepover at mine, all nine of you, ASAP” sent at 9:35a.m.

Seen by everyone.

When we first debuted, we used to sit in a circle once a week and everyone used to confess to something, whether it was a secret like a guy they found cute or if someone did something that annoyed the other, we’d all say whatever we were experiencing in the past week, by the end we’d all laugh and become closer than ever. It was because of how open we were with each other that we’re seven years into our debut, still together when the average for most girl groups is five years.

Girls fall out easier and harder than guys, for even the pettiest reason, you’d hear about members not speaking to each other, rumours would float around the corridors of the industry, ready to devour the weak and polish the strongest.

In the first years, we’d spent so much time together, literally the smallest things such as brushing your teeth or showering, we’d be together because of how many schedules we had as Girls’ Generation, because our name needed promotion and everyone had to know who we were, because only at that point we could consider ourselves successful.

The more time went by, the bigger we got, everything got overwhelming and there was barely any time to sleep, drink or eat, even when we were going around in our van, we would be too tired to talk, everyone drifting off to their own thoughts, although we’d have to hide our exhaustion whenever we shot a reality show because that wasn’t what people wanted to see from us, we were only object who are meant to look cute, have the perfect hair, a certain figure, a certain way of speaking and the more famous we got, the more careful we had to be with what we said or did, because everything, and I mean everything could be taken in the wrong way.

One little thing could destroy us.

We were living the same experience, something I’m thankful because so many want to be where we are and so many don’t get to live their dreams but with high dreams comes high sacrifices, sacrifices that I never knew I was ready to make.

All nine of us in one room, with no cameras, no managers or people working with us, it probably had been more than a year but here we were, sat in my living room floor, eating the unhealthiest takeaway possible.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” Hyoyeon said, laying around, just having finished eating.

She was always one of the first to finish, we all ate around the same amount but she was the fastest, most of us would have half of our plate full while she’d be on her last bite.

“Uh-uh, it’s weird how all of us actually are free at the same time. Shall we play like we used to?” Yuri initiated, waving her right arm around, excited.

“Okay, who’s first? You take a shot if you pass though, we can all drink now! Seohyun, maknae, you’re first!”

With a small shot in her left arm and chopsticks on the right, she thoughts on what to say for a minute and then smiled, probably having found something.

“I’m graduating next month!”

“You have to take your shot! We have to celebrate! Congratulations!” I said, bringing up my shot up to hers and waiting for everyone to join in,

“Cheers!” we said all at once and it was then that I actually think, about how much time it has passed. Seohyun graduating was bittersweet in a way because it really only seemed like yesterday that she started university. She already achieved so much, what did I achieve in all that time?

Nothing, that’s what.

I shouldn’t have thought about me then, because I knew that Seohyun’s intention was to celebrate a good moment with us but I couldn’t help but compare, I didn’t do anything by myself that I could be proud of. Girls’ Generation was the hard work of all of us, including the hundreds of people who worked with us and for us, it was nothing I could boast about because alone, I would never be where I am now.

“Next! Yoona! Let’s do it by youngest to oldest!”

Yoona smiled, biting her lips uncomfortably.

“C’mon, we all know about you and Lee Seungi, do you really have nothing spicy to tell us?” Sooyoung , wiggling her eyebrows.

“I’m too boring, can I pass?”

We all groaned but let her take a shot instead, knowing that coming from it was probably true. Dating Lee Seungi wasn’t even shocking to us, knowing her crush on him for at least four years, it was really a dream come true for all of us when we found out. I wasn’t jealous, because being jealous meant that I wanted what she had, I was beyond happy for her because I know fully well that I’m not ready for a relationship.

A relationship meant commitment, effort and time, two out of three I didn’t have and effort would be pointless with the other two missing.

I did think about it, I didn’t want to be thirty and have no one by my side but by the way things were going, who knew down the line what would happen. Once you enter this job, a personal life is hard to maintain and even when you do find the right person, everything can be against you.

I wasn’t as lucky as Yoona, most of us don’t have the perfect image and a guy with a perfect image, but at twenty-five years old, you realize that being perfect is impossible and you can only be your best. Even if sometimes your best isn’t enough.

“I have something I was thinking about, girls” Taeyeon admitted, her voice soft in the midst of our loud voices going over the other. Silence issued, because that was the presence that Kim Taeyeon always had.

“How… long are we going to do this? Lately, I wake up and I think, this can’t last forever, as much as we would love it for it to. How long is it going to be until we get into a huge, bigger scandal and crumble?” she said.

“What’s with such deep thoughts, Taeyeon?”

She laughed, nothing was amusing and she knew that too, because tears escaped her eyes and only then I could see what she meant.

I knew what she meant, we all did but we never said it to each other, we never spoke our these thoughts out loud because we have to be stronger for one another. If one of us falls, didn’t we all do?

“I’ve been having a hard time lately. It’s not just with Baekhyun and I, I knew it was going to come out sooner or later, but with everything. There used to be times where I wanted to just sleep and never wake up, not die but just never having to face another camera, another person, and as much as I love our fans, even their love burdens me at times. They love us yet they don’t really know us and I still don’t understand why. I find myself wishing for my voice to disappear, for something to happen and halt our appearances, as awful and horrible as that sounds. Am I the only one? I have been wondering that too, a lot.”

A tear escaped my eyes, no one dared to look at each other but sniffing could be heard, plates on the floor, everyone just there, silently and quiet. I took a deep breaths, this was what my father had been talking about. We are together but we didn’t talk, and now we were finally starting to.

“Shall I be honest too? I feel really lonely. Not as much now but a few months ago, I was the loneliest I ever was. It was like a spiral, I was constantly sad and I couldn’t come out of the sadness. Most of us are doing something or are somewhere else and I know we text, but the more days followed, a wall appeared between me and some of you. Especially you, Taeyeon. I felt like I couldn’t talk to you anymore, that you couldn’t talk to me too, suddenly we have nothing to say to each other. We’re in the same room, but we’ll ignore each other. It’s not just you, Taeyeon-ah. I’m sorry. If I have been weird, different or odd. I love Girls’ Generation, and you’re not the only one. How long will we do this for? Until we have a huge argument and become like one of those girl groups that don’t speak to each other anymore? Or that have a huge split?”

I closed my eyes, that had been hard to say but the huge feeling of relief that joined me when I finished saying it couldn’t be described.

“Please don’t do this, please. No, no, no, you can’t do this” Tiffany said, sobbing through her words. I glanced up to her and I don’t think I’d ever forget this moment, the way she was crying as if someone had died, shaking her head.

“Shall… we break up? Split? I mean, we have accomplished so much and all of you are family but…” Sunny added for the first time, her eyes full of tears too but wshe was controlled, as she had always been since years ago.

“So, this is the end? Of Girls’ Generation? Of us?”

“It’s the end.”