Everything had changed so fast.

~ ;-; ~

It was New Year Eve and she had just come back from her schedule. She walked tiredly towards their room, exchanging greetings as she passed several members along the way, but she couldn’t help but noticed something.

The members looked at her… anxiously?

Jessica, Taeyeon, Sunny, Hyoyeon…

She decided to stop when Sooyoung also gave her the same look, even in the middle of eating a bowl of ramen.

“Is there something wrong?” she asked.

“Hrmm hnggh mrrh?” replied Sooyoung with full.

She cocked her brows and waited.

“I don’t know?” repeated Sooyoung finally when she had swallowed the food. She was tempted to point out the gaze she had been receiving, but her tiredness fought against it.

She let out a sigh and resumed walking.

When she arrived in front of the room, she briefly wondered if her unnie would give her the same look, too. Sighing again, she reached for the door’s knob and twisted it open. Slowly, she pushed the door and entered the room.

She expected a smile or some kind of recognition when she saw that the room wasn’t unoccupied.

But when its only occupant looked up from the laptop on her lap and noticed her presence, she only heard a mumble of her name.

“Yoona.”

She swore she heard sadness and pain in it.

The occupant, her unnie, Yuri, got up from their joined beds slowly. The laptop was left on the beds, still on. The owner made her way to the door, and stopped right beside her.

“Unnie—“

“You never tell me,” she heard the older girl said. “Never said anything… not even once.”

She felt at loss of words, but then maybe words were the least that mattered because Yuri quickly said above whisper,

“Congratulations.”

And the older girl left the room almost in a flash.

Leaving her stood here, alone, motionless, confused.

What was just happened?

One minute had passed, and, upon noticing the still--laptop on their joined beds, she walked there to retrieve it. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, praying for the thing to have, at least, an answer. Then she clicked ‘enter’ to lighten the blank screen.

It was a page. A page from the internet.

A page from the internet about a dating news.

Her dating news.

~ ;-; ~

Everything went downhill from there.

Well, maybe not everything—the members had held an emergency meeting when all nine were present, and asked for her confirmation.

She had confirmed that, yes, SM had indeed confirmed the news.

Then after so much coaxing, she finally nodded at Taeyeon’s question of “are you dating Seunggi oppa?”

She hadn’t dared to risk a glance to the person she wanted to see the most. She had kept her eyes fixed towards Taeyeon, Tiffany, and Seohyun, who had seated across her.

The emergency meeting ended, then, without a fight or a shouting match. Surely it meant that at least one thing went well?

She stepped out from the manager’s car, bowing politely to him and promising to come back in one hour.

She turned around and greeted the guy who had waited there, apologizing for coming late. He waved it off and smiled charmingly at her. She smiled back gratefully. Seunggi had always been a patient gentleman.

Surely it meant that at least two things in her life went well………

She inhaled deeply.

No, two things in her life went well, and she could life with that.

~ ;-; ~

It was their first concert after her dating news got published. Their first performance. They had to wait for an hour in their waiting room because they were, not accidentally, coming too early.

(Seohyun had stated that coming early is better than running late and, who were they to argue? The maknae had always been right, after all.)

Some used the spare time to get some rest while others mimicked the dance moves they were going to perform to warm up.

She chose the first option.

Leaning back, she let her eyes wandered around the room, mentally checking the members one by one. She knew she was taking over Manager Hwang’s task—after all, it was Tiffany’s habit to fuss over the members’ presence—but she couldn’t help it. She got nothing to do.

And then, her gaze fell to Yuri.

The latter was going over the moves with Hyoyeon and Sooyoung, inserting several jokes when it got too serious, and laughing at something Hyoyeon said.

She couldn’t hear what Hyoyeon said to get the tanned girl laugh, but she felt tempted to smile just by witnessing her laughter. It was that contagious.

She had been unable to see the tanned girl’s smile, never mind laughter, these past several days. Whenever she woke up, the tanned girl had left, and when the latter had come back… it was either Yuri rushed to go sleep quickly or she herself had gone off to sleep.

And it didn’t include the times when she herself was the one to come back late.

The other members had explained that Yuri had always liked to practice hard, thus the earlier and longer visit to their training room. Add to that the upcoming concert, the members deemed it reasonable that Yuri worked harder than ever. Sooyoung and Hyoyeon, being the people occasionally went to accompany the Black Pearl, also reminded her about their next single which had yet to be released.

“Yuri has a shot towards perfectionism about dance moves, you know,” quipped Hyoyeon at that time.

She had frowned at that. Sure, in some ways, it sounded believable. Logical, even.

But Yuri wasn’t too perfectionist to skip off her Ma when noticing that she had gone downstairs early.

The tanned girl had also left her laptop untouched at her table, too.

If they didn’t room together, she doubted she could catch a glimpse of the tanned girl at all.

Why…

Why did it feel like the older girl was avoiding her?

She sighed deeply. Come on, you’re going to perform soon. Shouldn’t you think of happy thought, she scolded herself mentally. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, before proceeding to exhale slowly through her nostrils. Now, if only she could get Seohyun to play a melody of splashing sound and twittering birds, she could begin mediate.

She opened her eyes and checked the clock. Fifteen minutes to go.

She put her index fingers each at the edge of her lips, and slowly pulled it upwards.

She had to smile.

~ ;-; ~

Yep. Yuri definitely avoided her. Had been, still was. That much she could figure out.

At first, at stage, she had been convinced that she was wrong. Because, there, they had actually interacted. Yuri had actually looked at her. Smiled at her. Laughed with her. Sure, the tanned girl didn’t fool around her as much as before, but they still had their whispering-to-each-other moments. The older girl didn’t back away when she leaned in to whisper.

“I miss you, unnie,” was what she had whispered, then. They locked their gaze, and, after a few seconds, Yuri smiled.

She had felt butterflies flutter helplessly inside her.

Sure, the tanned girl didn’t do much skin-ship with her, but she had, several times, caught the older girl glancing at her when they danced around each other.

More butterflies. More hope.

When they finally bid goodbye and exited the stage, she had prepared to walk beside the tanned girl, and grab her hand, and maybe intertwine their fingers together—

“Sooyoung, wait up! I’m hungry. Let’s grab something to eat. My treat.”

She watched, hands reached out to emptiness, as Yuri went off with Sooyoung. The latter briefly looked back and flashed a smile she could only identify as apologetic. She nodded, acknowledging, her hands retreated to her side.

This was what went downhill, wasn’t it?

Just one thing. She had two things went well. One was nothing.

But that was exactly what her problem was.

This one thing that went downhill—it wasn’t nothing.

It was more than nothing.

She gazed at her hand and fisted it. Jessica, had been walking ahead of her, called her name. She nodded and walked faster to catch up with the members—all the while trying to ignore how empty her hand felt at the moment.

~ ;-; ~

Several days after that, she met Seunggi again. The manager had said, thirty minutes, gesturing to his watch; and Seunggi promised to drive her back exactly at that. Patient as ever, even though this was practically their first… date… after what seemed like a year. Seunggi’s words, not hers.

She apologized for not having much time, and he waved it off again, stating that he was content in doing simple things with her and taking things slowly.

She couldn’t help to think that some things changed rapidly, no matter how hard she prayed for them to slow down.

Her mind wondered back to when Seunggi asked her to be her girlfriend after courting her for some time. Her dad supported him. Her unnie decided to keep silent, but that meant no ‘no’ coming in the way. The family, in conclusion, agreed. And she always did everything for the family…

So she said yes.

Then the news happened. It was only a week after they were official.

She had felt confident that the company would deny the news. But it came to the worst. The company confirmed it instead. And that was done without consulting to her. It was as if the company knew she dated. Or maybe the company experimented, testing the water, and ready to pull back if it turned out bad—so her confirmation wasn’t needed.

But Seunggi was a good guy. The water would ripple, but its calm would come after that. The fandom would come around, sooner or later. She doubted that people would hate her for dating a good guy like him.

She only felt grateful that she did date him, or her father would burst from reading the news alone.

What she didn’t count on, though, was the members’ reaction; or rather one member’s.

“You never tell me.”

She didn’t know what was the big deal.

If I told you, what would you say?

………

………

………

“Yoona? Yoona!”

She snapped out from her thought. Seunggi looked at her with concern. She waved it off, saying that it was only the tiredness, and apologized for ruining their date. The guy smiled warmly and reminded her to rest well. And he led her to the car.

Thirty minutes had passed, it seemed.

Along the way to the dorm, Seunggi tried to pull a smile from her. And smile, she did. If only to make him feel relieved. She herself didn’t really feel like smiling. Her mood was far from happy.

She stepped out from the car after bidding good night and reminded him to drive back safely. She walked to her dorm and entered it.

Arriving in front of her room, she hoped against hope that the older girl was awake. She wanted to ask the question she had been mulling over her date earlier. She wanted to know what would the tanned girl say had she told her before the news happened.

She twisted the door’s knob and pulled it open.

It was dark inside. Signaling that the occupant had fallen asleep. She could hear her hope crashing against the ground, but even she knew that that hope was too weak to begin with.

She the lamp.

As light began brightening the room, she caught the sight of the tanned girl sleeping on the right bed. The left bed was empty, bar her pillow and rilakkuma plushie.

She choked back her tears.

The joined beds had now been separated.

~ ;-; ~

The morning after that, she woke up to find herself alone in the room. Hurriedly, she got off from her bed and checked the drawer. She let out a sigh of relief when the drawer hadn’t been emptied even a bit.

At least Yuri unnie doesn’t plan to swap room.

She rubbed her eyes and padded towards the mirror. She winced when her eyes looked awfully red. She had cried herself to sleep last night while burying her head to the rilakkuma plushie to stifle her sobs.

She washed her face, trying to make it natural, before going down to catch a breakfast.

Descending the stairs, she hummed to herself a random tune. A random tune that stopped abruptly when she heard some voices rising against each other from the kitchen, which was located not far from the stairs.

“You can’t Yul,” she heard Taeyeon’s stern voice said.

“Why can’t I? I’ll just move into Fany’s room. I won’t even ask any of you guys to swap with me,” the voice she knew as Yuri’s replied hotly.

Move? Swap?

“You know that that’s not the problem, Yuri-ah,” came Tiffany’s soothing voice.

“Then what? Tell me. TELL ME! Do you also refuse to tell me anything now? What’s so hard about telling me?!!”

“Yul—“

“I’m going now.”

She still froze in her track when she distinctly heard a sound of the front door being opened and closed again. She still froze when Sooyoung appeared from the kitchen, seemingly to call her to have a breakfast. She still froze when Sooyoung grabbed her hand and tried to pull her down from the stairs.

It was when the taller girl deduced that she must’ve heard the commotion, and pulled her into a hug, that she finally unfroze. She hugged the other girl back and the dam broke again.

That morning, when she had calmed down and Sooyoung released her hug, she had asked Sooyoung to help her join their beds again. And so the beds got joined back. But when she came back at night, it got separated, again.

She gave up after that.

Not only because it seemed no use, but also because Sooyoung got her own share of problems. Yes, her own dating news had became known. Yuri was the first one to find out from her laptop, and the second emergency meeting was held. It hadn’t been as civil as her emergency meeting, she noted wearily. Jessica had stormed off from the forum as soon as Taeyeon told them about SM’s confirmation, and Sooyoung had looked frustrated and confused at everything. Yuri had apologized previously, for bringing the news into their attention, but no one thought it mattered. It only was the matter of time before one of them discovered it, after all.

~ ;-; ~

Performance after performance had been performed and, each time, she would find herself in the same cycle. Yuri would smile, laugh, whisper, and do skin-ship with her on stage. The tanned girl even hugged her and let her intertwine their fingers together. Like always, it fitted perfectly.

But off stage, she found her hands empty again.

She tried to catch the older girl, if only to ask why the difference.

She failed every time.

She tried, one time, to see how Sooyoung and Jessica did on stage. They were more distant compared to what she had with Yuri. She gave up, then. She gave up seeking explanation and just focused to cherish the moment she could be around the tanned girl without awkwardness instead.

Then one day, among their days off, Sooyoung pulled her to the side.

“I need to ask you something,” whispered Sooyoung in hushed voice, and dragged her to the SooSica’s room. Jessica wasn’t here, she noted, and the room seemed like a mess, what’s with all those crumpled sheets and scattered things. Sooyoung didn’t even bother to look embarrassed. If anything, she looked pained.

“What is it?”

“Are you or are you not dating Seunggi oppa?”

She raised her brows, mentally checking her memories of saying yes to Taeyeon’s question in the past.

“I am.” Then when silence descended, she added, “Why?”

“Because I’m sure as hell not dating Kyungho!!”

 She blinked. And blinked again. Sooyoung looked away, her breath ragged.

“You what?”

Sooyoung let out a long sigh. “Fine, maybe my family has been pushing me towards him for several months already but…” the taller girl growled in frustration, “We’re not even official! Why the heck did the company confirm it? I don’t even get consulted about it!”

She scratched her neck, processing what she’d just heard.

“So the news…”

“Not exactly true,” supplied Sooyoung. “And now everything is a mess because of that.” Sooyoung buried her face in her hands and let out a muffled scream.

“Ah, so that’s why you looked so confused at our emergency meeting,” she stated, suddenly understanding the situation. “The company…”

Wait. So the company had actually been deliberately saying they’re dating, regardless of whether or not they really were?

That was…

Before she could voice out her opinion, however, the door was opened. She nudged Sooyoung repeatedly and when the latter looked up, she gestured towards the door.

“Jess…”

The said girl held up a hand and Sooyoung halted. The ice princess entered the room, closing back the door as she did so. Then, with a moment of hesitation, sat at the edge of the bed, far from them.

She watched as silence enveloped, Sooyoung looked pleadingly, while Jessica fiddled with her fingers.

“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” the ice princess breathed finally. “But…”

“Jess… Sica… not everything is like what it seems,” said Sooyoung hoarsely.

Jessica lifted her gaze to meet Sooyoung’s for a few seconds before looking away. “I know,” the cucumber-hater replied softly. “I come into that conclusion, too.”

“How much did you hear?” asked Sooyoung, referring to the eavesdropping part.

“From the part you denied dating Jung Kyungho,” answered Jessica in a low voice. “I don’t understand why the company did that, though…”

She snorted.

Sooyoung and Jessica looked at her questioningly.

“What?”

“You admitted that you’re dating Seunggi oppa, right? Why are you snorting?” asked Sooyoung, bemused.

She snorted again. “Just because I do date him, doesn’t mean that the company consulted me before confirming.” Then, under her breath she added, “Four months my ; it has only been a week.”

Jessica looked at the taller girl, properly this time, and smiled sheepishly. “I think… a sorry is in order.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” said Sooyoung quickly. “Just… just don’t avoid me again.” The taller girl’s shoulder slumped down, “I’ve been miserable without you. You’re important to me, Sica. I’ve come to realize that and I want you to know that too.”

“It’s not easy for me, either,” admitted Jessica softly. “But being near you bring me heartache I’d rather not feel.”

“Is it, now?” asked Sooyoung above whisper. The ice princess heard it, though. Taking a deep breath, Jessica scooted closer and took the taller’s hand in hers.

“No… not anymore.”

Then like any movies’ er, she couldn’t help but coughed at that very moment. “If you’re going to do what I think you’re going to do, may I remind you that I’m still here,” she said dryly.

“And what is the thing we’re going to do, Im?”

“Reciting cheesy lines from romance musicals,” she deadpanned. “And then kissing like tomorrow is the doomsday.”

Sooyoung groaned, although a blush was apparent on her face. “May I remind you that this is our room?”

“Great, now you’re kicking me out?” she gasped dramatically. “May I remind you who dragged me here in the first place?”

“Oh shush, the business is over, now if you don’t mind the exit is that way.”

Rolling her eyes, she saluted to the owner of the room and made a show of marching out from the scene. She closed the door and leaned against it, her mind went through what she had watched unravel in front of her.

Why couldn’t she and Yuri go that way too?

~ ;-; ~

Today was one of those rare occasions where she had actually been back in the dorm with a very much awake Yuri and not because of emergency meeting. They had busied themselves in the kitchen now to prepare dinner, and she noted that today all nine girls were present as well.

While the tanned girl offered to help Hyoyeon chopping vegetables, she decided to do the wash. Although, since no one began eating yet, the amount of things needed to be washed weren’t that many.

And by the look of it, she had done a pretty good job.

“Yah Yoona, how come you haven’t finished washing yet?” commented Taeyeon when she passed by.

Stealing glances and long stares, that’s how, she mentally answered. Of course she couldn’t tell Taeyeon that.

“I like playing with waters,” she replied instead. Then to add some effects, she splashed some to the kid leader.

“Yah, yah!”

“Oooops,” she grinned, “sorry.”

After letting Taeyeon fake-choked her despite the vertical difference, she resumed washing what’s left in the sink. Then she moved towards the table which had been arranged nicely and took a seat. Her gaze flickered towards where Sooyoung and Jessica sat, side by side, all warming up into each other’s presence again after their distance.

She gulped her jealousy silently.

Instead, she cleared and grinned widely, “I believe a congratulation is in order…?”

Jessica blushed. “We didn’t do it!”

“Well, I don’t say anything about doing ‘it’,” she replied, then adding slyly, “Just what is the ‘it’ we’re talking about, anyway?”

“You’re terrible,” quipped Sooyoung as the ice princess melted away in embarrassment. “Don’t disturb her, Yoong.”

She placed her hand over her chest. “Ouch. You pain me!”

Then she saw Sooyoung’s mock glare softened. “Yeah,” said the taller girl, “it’s so easy to pain others, isn’t it?”

She didn’t have the chance to ask what the ultimate shikshin meant, because Hyoyeon declared then that all was ready to be served, and Yuri brought the foods to the table. She chanced a glance and a smile when the older girl stood near her, only to be ignored as always.

Sooyoung cleared and smiled sympathetically. She shrugged weakly, trying her best to deny the discomfort that settled in her stomach and focused to dig into her meal instead.

~ ;-; ~

They walked towards their room together after dinner; well, if you could count one walking a meter ahead of the other as together. It was eleven PM and they felt knackered, at best. Sleep would be good, as Taeyeon had so nicely pointed out earlier.

They entered the room and went straight to their respective beds. She had figured then that she never broached the subject about the beds’ separation, but she didn’t think the older girl would answer. And she was too tired to feel rejection once again.

So she lied down on her bed, a rilakkuma plushie in her embrace, and closed her eyes. Sleepiness didn’t immediately embrace her, though, as she found her mind wandered off instead. It brought out almost everything, anything, into her front attention. Started with the company’s unexpected initiative she had discovered recently, and then to Seunggi, to the members, and…

She let out a long, shaky breath.

She had been reassuring herself that her world would be alright. One went downhill but two still went well. No big deal.

But then, she was reminded of those lonely feelings whenever she gazed at her empty hand.

She dismissed it, at first.

But even Seunggi couldn’t get rid of that sickeningly paining feeling.

Time would heal wounds, they said, but how come hers just got bigger each of the passing days?

She let out another long breath. The most ridiculous thing was she didn’t even know if the one who caused her feeling like this also went through it. She didn’t even know if the other girl felt the way she did.

And what do you feel?

“I’ve been miserable without you. You’re important to me, Sica. I’ve come to realize that and I want you to know that too.”

As her mind flashed back to the Soosica moment she witnessed, she couldn’t help but mentally nod at Sooyoung’s words. Yep, that had summed her suffering up nicely. Except maybe she felt lonely too. And guilty. And desperately needed an interaction if only so she could make sure that they still lived the same world off stage.

She opened her eyes and glanced to the bed on the other side of the room. Instead of a sleeping Yuri, she found the older girl wide awake, staring at the ceiling quietly.

“Yuri unnie?” she called out timidly.

The said girl didn’t even twitch.

She rolled over so that she was facing the other bed. “Unnie, talk to me…”

Silence swallowed her plea.

“Unnie please… what wrong did I do?”

“You did no wrong,” a voice other than hers finally sounded.

Stunned to believe that her question had actually been answered, she blinked, and blinked again, and blurted,

“You’re lying.”

“Are you that eager to be wrong?” said the older girl without taking off the gaze from the ceiling.

“You have been avoiding me,” she said, trying to keep the accusing tone off of her voice.

Yuri chuckled at that and moved to sit. Fiddling her fingers, the tanned girl stared off at the ground.

“Yeah, well, I’m just trying to be comfortable with the idea of living without you,” answered Yuri. “After all I’m going to quit from the group soon.”

“What?!”

“Don’t be so surprised,” said the tanned girl with a chuckle. “It’s not like anything massive will happen. I’ve always been one of those members on the background.”

She couldn’t believe her ears. Couldn’t believe at how easy the other girl stated her supposed departure. Couldn’t believe at… at…

“How about me?” she finally managed to say in a low voice.

“Don’t look so down, Yoona. You don’t need me anymore.”

“You… you…” for a moment her mind failed her from finding words to say. “You never tell me!”

And finally, Yuri looked at her, gazing directly to her eyes.

“It hurts, isn’t it?”

Then the tanned girl looked away.

“It’s only fair. You don’t need me, well there’s a breaking news; I shouldn’t need you, either.”

“In fact,” the tanned girl smiled, “I may leave now rather than later, since I have said farewell to practically everyone, now.”

A thunder was heard from outside and she watched in horror as the ground below her shook. She gripped the edge of her bed, trying to steady herself to no avail, the ground kept shaking and she thought she might’ve noticed a huge hole started to be formed. Before she could warn the other girl about it, the lights went out.

And she heard a whisper,

“Goodbye, Yoong.”

The thunder still raged outside, but the ground had stopped shaking. Silence stilled in the darkness before a loud piercing scream cut it all.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”