AUTHOR'S NOTE: 

Hello all!  Long time no see.  I missed writing for you all.

Breaking my hiatus with this angsty, melodramatic feeling one-shot. 

Disclaimer:  All events are 100% fictional.

Please, please leave feedback in the comments!

XX

They drift apart.  Naturally.  She rolls her eyes whenever she thinks of the word. Doesn’t think it is right.

After Roommate, there were a handful of events and schedules in which their idol member paths crossed, kept crossing.  It was easier to keep up with one another then, maintain their friendship and flirtation; meeting up in the hallways and waiting rooms when there was down time.

She mostly remembers the excitement surrounding those days, even the air she breathed seemed charged; the way her heart would flutter at the what-ifs in her head.  But then, her career as an idol fizzled to an abrupt end just as his seemed to take-off. 

Just like that, the trajectory of their almost relationship had changed. 

Her agency filled her schedule with variety programs in an effort to keep her visible and relevant to the public. Yes, she was a member of a veteran girl group but, she was still a rookie. She took to the changes in stride (or so she thought) and threw herself into her work at the expense of everything else. 

Keeping a busy schedule helped her mind not to wander, allowed her to delay dealing with her heartbreak.  Kara’s disbandment was the end of much too short-lived dream.  Her world its axis.  She was floundering, struggling to find her footing again, to find a new dream.   

In the midst, Jackson’s popularity was ever growing.  It is well-deserved. He is one of the most hard-working people she has ever met.  Knows that his group members are of the same thread.  Got7 expands their overseas activities – taking him out of the country more than he is in – to different time zones.  Naturally, (there goes that word again), the texts and phone calls dwindle. 

Eventually, they stop altogether.  She is not surprised.  After all, she started it first.  But, it stings all the same penetrating through the numbness.

XX

Perhaps it is true what they say about the healing properties of time.  Each day after gets a little easier if she takes it one day at a time.

In the months that followed, Youngji discovers a new passion in acting.  Likes how she is able to lose herself in different characters, become someone else. 

More months after that, she finally learns to accept the end of the chapter of her life as an idol girl group member.  Many tears are shed and plenty of ice cream is eaten. 

Her eyes are puffy and red for days and she puts on a few pounds, but it helps.  Her heart feels lighter.  She’s smiling again, coming out of a gray fog.

Before she knows it, a year and a few months have passed.  She feels like her old self again. No. Better.  She has never been one to be kept down so, she fights.  Reinvents.  Emerging stronger.  Surer.

XX

But one thing remains unresolved.

All of this time, she has not allowed her mind to think of him.  Jackson. 

Just his name, conjures bittersweet memories and regrets.  She feels apologetic and embarrassed for her actions.  How she treated him.  It was not supposed to turn out this way.

She can’t imagine how he must have felt