The crowd cheered loudly as the girls got off the stage. It had finally happened, tonight was the night of their very first performance. Nicole’s legs felt like jelly that she had to hold onto Seungyeon to walk properly. When they went back to their changeroom, they were greeted by their make up artists and stylists and manager and other staffs with applause. “You guys did amazing!”

There were gifts and fan letters laying all over the tables. It was amazing how the girls already had fans sending them gifts on their first debut stage. The girls hugged and thanked everyone with tears of joy. Everyone had cake and food and celebrated for their big day. They were surprised to see their sunbaes SS501 suddenly walk through the door. “CONGRATULATIONS!”

“Oppa!” they greeted the 5 boys who came right after their schedules to see them.

“Here,” Sunghee smiled handing Hyungjoon and Kyujung a piece of cake.

“Charisma overload!” Jungmin said, spazzing like a fanboy.

“Oh look I just got a text from MayBee unni!” Seungyeon says holding up her phone, “She says, ‘Wah! My dongsaengs looked amazing on stage. Sorry I can’t be there for the party! Have fun and hwaiting! ^^ ♥~”

Nicole who was talking to Youngsaeng, couldn’t help but slowly lose the smile on her face at the mention of a text. While the rest of the girls were checking their phones with flooded inboxes, she looked down and forced herself to smile.

Why bother checking when I know there won’t be one from him.

She hadn’t talked to Key ever since that night.

Nicole tears didn’t stop as she hugged him tightly. “I’m sorry, Ki. I’m really sorry.”

Kibum simply stood, not moving a single muscle as she pulled away and walked back into her house with her head hanging.

She missed him so much. There were so many nights when she felt like calling him and asking him how he was but she told herself she couldn’t. If she were to call him, how would he react? He was probably really mad at her for choosing her career over their friendship. It would be unfair if she were to suddenly call him and expect him to forgive her. She was pulled out of her thoughts when someone suddenly flicked her on the nose.

“Yah. Are you dozing off already?” She looked up with a hand on her nose at Hyun Joong. She looked around and saw that everyone was helping clean up the place while she just stood there.

“Oh! Sorry!” she said quickly rushing over to stack up the dirty utensils.

Hyun Joong trailed after her and asked, “You okay?”

“Yeah! Of course!” she tried to sound as bubbly as ever.

“You know I can tell you’re not actually okay,” he said, taking the mountain of plates from her. “There’s always people around for you to lean on when you’re tired.”

His words echoed in her head as he walked away to put away the dirty dishes and plates There’s always people around for you to lean on when you’re tired.

But what if that one person you’re looking for isn’t there.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kibum sat quietly in the living room in front of the television without saying a word. His umma occasionally glanced over to check on him from the kitchen but didn’t bother asking what’s wrong. After that night when his appa found him in the morning sleeping in front of the house with swollen eyes, Kibum’s been different. He lost that glow in his eyes and they rarely saw his bright smiles. Even if he did, it was obvious they were forced. He did nothing but practice and practice, barely saying more than three words when he comes home.

He sat with his legs crossed as he stared at the t.v. with no expression on his face whatsoever. The performance had just ended as the 4 girls exited the stage. His eyes were glued onto one girl the entire time and that one girl was none other than Nicole. Although his face showed no expression, his heart felt like it was breaking all over again. During the day he would hide his pain from others, keeping them unaware of the many nights he had cried missing her. And now that he was seeing her again, even if it was on the television, he wished he had had hugged her tightly and never let go the night they last saw each other.

Without a word, he went back to his room. His mother frowned, knowing that he was going to skip dinner again. It wasn’t the first time he did, but she knew there was nothing she could do to get him to eat when he didn’t want to. When she did, he simply sat in front of the food and starred at it, later excusing himself and going back into his room.

In his room, Kibum was sitting on his bed staring at his phone again. That’s what he found himself doing a lot; staring at the picture of Nicole and him. He often felt the urge to call her or text her just to ask her how she was doing, but every time he did, he would be reminded of her words.

“I’m sorry. I’m going to debut soon and they didn’t want me to be distracted. I had to choose. And you’re a trainee too. If people find out how close we were before we even debuted, it could ruin our image in the future.”

He opened up a new text message and began typing into it.

Hey. I just saw your performance. You looked so pretty and danced so well. So how have you been doing? I miss you a lot.

Staring at it, he saved it under drafts and flipped his phone shut and putting it on the counter. He crawled into bed and pulled the covers over his head, wanting to fall asleep and never wake up again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s only been 3 months since they started their promotions and it has already ended. During the first month, the girls had barely gotten any sleep due to the extensive practices and schedules. Although they received quite a lot of attention at first, the attention began to die out. Nicole couldn’t help but feel that all that effort has gone to waste. They had only just debuted and they were already forgotten. Forgotten by everyone but their fans and the antis.

Of course, they loved their fans and everything but sometimes they were a bit too much. The girls expected it but it was still a lot to handle. To not be able to go to the washroom by yourself but with the rest of the girls because they were scared an obsessive fan may follow them into the washroom. The anti fans left mean comments on their cyworlds and there were often comments made by the netizens comparing them with their sunbaes Fin.K.L.

There were so many rules they had to follow. Their curfew was 10: 00 p.m. if their schedule ended early which rarely happened and they weren’t even allowed to ever go out by themselves. How were they supposed to see their friends?

But that was all part of being an idol

And so the hardships grew. But the girls didn’t give up. They had been preparing hard for their next album, hoping to do better than when they first debuted. Their comeback was supposed to be sometime in March.

But it was one day that everything seemed to go crashing down.

On February 28^th, it was announced that Sunghee would be leaving the group. It was a decision made because she failed to pass her college exams. It was a promise she made to her dad and to her mother who had passed away.

The rest of the girls cried upon hearing the news. Sunghee had 2 days to pack her bags and move out of the dorm and back with her dad. Sunghee was having the hardest time. She didn’t want to part from the girls who were almost like sisters to her, but she had no choice. It was a promise she made to her parents and it was a promise she had to keep. The DSP contract with her has been terminated as it said it would if she had failed to keep up her grades.

Sunghee continuously apologized to the girls for not doing better on the college exams, if she did, none of this happened. But the girls simply told her she could make it up to them by staying. They cried continuously for 3 hours as they all tried to convince her not to leave. But after those 3 hours, they’ve come to realize that it was impossible to stop her. They also knew about how Sunghee had health problems because of the stress and lack of rest. The best thing to do was let her go. The four of them sat in the living room without saying a word. The only sound heard among them were sniffles. Finally, their manager couldn’t take it anymore and said.

“You girls only have 2 days left to spend together. After that, it’ll be hard to see each other. Are you guys just going to sit here and let these 2 days pass by miserably?” he asked, trying to not sound as sad. Of course he was going to miss Sunghee but the girls needed to pull it together.

That night, they went out for dinner trying to have as much fun as possible. The manager had changed their curfew to 3 a.m. letting the girls stay out longer to do what they couldn’t have before. Those two days passed by quickly, and soon enough, Sunghee left. Her bed was empty and her side of the room was empty. Most of all, she left an empty gap in each of the girl’s hearts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nicole was sitting on her bed staring at the empty side of the room in the darkness. She was the one who shared rooms with Sunghee since they were the youngest in the group. Being the youngest ones in the group, they could share their feelings with each other if they were upset about something the unnies did. But now she wasn’t here anymore. The same lonely feeling Nicole felt when she first came to Korea was coming back. The same feeling which caused her to not eat properly and made her lose her self confidence.

Her phone vibrated in her hand.

1 New Message: Hyoyeon

Well try to cheer up okay? 

I’m sure things will get better.

I need to go sleep now. Manager is yelling at me ><”

Need to wake up super early tomorrow.

I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

Good night! ♥

-Hyoyeon.

She texted back a thank you and good night and flipped shut her phone. Hyoyeon was a friend she met back backstage along with Seohyun. They were from SNSD which was a new girl group from SM entertainment, meaning the same company as Ki. She had wanted to ask them if they knew him but she didn’t know if bringing him up would be such a good idea. And besides, what’s the point. So what if they knew him. It wasn’t going to change anything. Nicole stared at the phone she held tightly in her hand.

She spent many nights sitting on her bed just clutching onto her phone. Hoping that maybe, just maybe, she would get a text from Ki. She reminded herself that she had promised herself that she would stop thinking about him, but he seemed to be only thing which helped her get through the hardest times in life. Even if he wasn’t here, rereading their previous text messages was enough to at least make her smile. She had never deleted one text from him because that was the only thing from him that she could keep.

She pulled her knees up to her chest and whispered to herself, “What am I going to do now, Ki?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Here is SHINee!”

As soon as the lights came on, the crowd bursted with cheers. There were many fans sitting in the audience holding up banners for the five boys. From the start to the end of the song, the five boys put their best effort into the performance. They forgot about being nervous and just did what they did during their practices. When the song had ended, their hearts were still pumping loudly in their chest. Kibum stared into the crowd and thought one thing to himself.You’re watching this right?