“Who are you talking to, Hyejin?”

Hyejin looked up from her phone to face Yongsun. The latter held a towel against her cheek, stretching her legs in front of the dance studio’s mirrors.

“It’s just my best friend, unnie.” She set her phone down and began to rise from her position. “Sorry, is break over already?”

“Oh, no, it’s fine!” Yongsun waved her arms frantically, beckoning the younger girl to sit back down. “I was only curious. Is it that girl you went to middle school with?”

Hyejin nodded. “Yeah, her name is Jung Wheein. We aren’t used to being apart from each other for so long, so she’s been asking how I’ve been doing since I started training.” She paused when she saw Yongsun raise an eyebrow. “Okay, I phrased that in a weird way. Just to make things clear, I don’t find her constant texts annoying. I’m happy that we’re still in contact because that’s exactly what we promised each other when we graduated. And I ask how she’s doing too, I don’t just complain to her all day. I mean, I have no idea what she’s talking about when she talks about her assignments but—”    

She frowned when she noticed Yongsun bite her lip as if she was holding in laughter. “What’s so funny?”

Turning away from her, Yongsun covered with one hand. “N-nothing,” she said. “I was just thinking ‘wow Hyejin really is the child of Mamamoo.’”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t mean anything bad by that, of course,” Yongsun insisted. “I was thinking you were cute just now.”

Hyejin rolled her eyes. “I’m always cute,” she said simply.

Yongsun giggled, her eyes squinting due to her wide smile. “What’s Wheein like anyway? Is she fatal like you?”

“Are you kidding me?” Hyejin scoffed. “That’s the last thing that comes to mind when Wheein is involved.” She passed her phone to Yongsun. “See for yourself.”

She looked down at the screen, her eyes slightly widening. “Woah, she’s adorable!”

Yongsun froze when she realized the full context of what she was looking at, glancing up at Hyejin with a smirk. “She’s your lockscreen?” she cooed.

Hyejin glared at her. “Yeah, so?” she huffed. “Don’t you and Byul-unnie have matching photos of each other? What’s the big deal?”

Yongsun gave her a pointed look, but didn’t say anything. She leaned back, her arms supporting her weight. “I’m glad you have a friend you can tell your troubles to.”

Hyejin stared at her, an unspoken question clearly on her mind.

“I know practice can be hard,” Yongsun clarified. “Sometimes, it can be too stressing and you’ll wonder if doing this was a mistake. You’ll want to tell someone, but you can’t admit this to your parents because they might tell you that it’s best to give up after all and you don’t want to tell the other trainees because you’re afraid they’ll look down on you.” She patted Hyejin’s shoulder. “That part is hypothetical, by the way. Byulyi and I won’t judge you for being honest with us.”

Hyejin nodded. Not only was she touched because Yongsun knew what Hyejin was going through, but also because Yongsun interrupted her speech just to reassure her.

“As I was saying,” she continued. “My mind is at ease, knowing that you have someone you can be honest with, someone that’ll be with you no matter what.”

Hyejin smiled. “Thank you, unnie.”

“No problem, Hyejin.” She playfully nudged her in the shoulder. “Don’t act that way only around Wheein though! You have to tell your members when you’re having worries too. We’re a family now after all.”

“Okay,” Hyejin said. “I will, I promise.”

Hyejin checked her phone for the fourth time today, disappointed to find that she hasn’t texted today either.

“Hyejin, what’s wrong?” Byulyi tilted her head and crossed her arms, her eyebrows creased in worry. “You’ve been staring at your phone all day.”

She shook her head. Her eyes didn’t leave the screen. “It’s nothing,” Hyejin said. “I was just hoping Wheein would wish me luck since we’re debuting today.”

“Oh, your friend that’s attending art school right?” Byulyi flashed a grin. “I’m sure she’ll congratulate you soon enough, college students are always busy you know.” She nodded. “Just you wait! After we finally have our first performance, she’s going to rave about how great you were.”

Hyejin chuckled. “Thanks, unnie.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Guys, come on!” Yongsun walked over to them, flattening the wrinkles in her dress. “They said that we’re starting in five.”

The two nodded, following their leader to the edge of the stage. Hyejin forgot about her troubles for a moment, filled with adrenaline as she sang with Yongsun and danced along to Byulyi’s rap. She focused on the reason why she left her home for Seoul. She focused on the butterflies in her stomach when she performed rather than the ones that built up inside her when she thought of Wheein.

When the music dwindled down and Hyejin could only hear the sound of her own rapid breathing, only when she and her members came backstage with relieved grins on their faces, Hyejin brought her mind back to the past.

She unlocked her phone and checked the messenger app. No new messages.

“Did she text you, Hyejin?” Byulyi piped in, antsy.

Staring at her phone for one more moment, Hyejin set her phone down on the folding table. She turned to Byulyi with a small smile on her face. “Yeah, she did. You were right. I had nothing to worry about.”

Hyejin locked her apartment door shut, letting her purse slip off her shoulders as she staggered forward in the hall. Her feet lost their footing and she slipped, catching herself as her body hit the wall. Her stomach lurched and she wondered when she was going to hurl. She ran her hand back through her hair, clumps of strands sticking to her forehead. She forced herself to move on until she found herself inside her own bedroom, her vision hazy.

When practice ended for the day, learning that she was free tomorrow, Hyejin spent the night at the bar. Nothing went wrong. The choreo was difficult at times, but she thought it was fine. The song Mamamoo planned for their comeback was catchy, so memorizing it was fine. She was fine when Yongsun and Byulyi said that they were too lazy to go out when she invited them after they finished with activities.

She was just homesick. She just wanted to forget the grief she felt when she was alone. For one day, for just one hour, for just one damn second, she just wanted to stop yearning for the home she chose to leave in the first place.

But the silence of her own home made her only remember. Laying down on her mattress, Hyejin hoped to pass out and complain about her hangover in the morning when she felt a hard object hit her back. She rolled in her bed to find out what it was and realized her phone fell out of her pocket.

She sighed and grabbed her phone, staring at her lockscreen with a pained expression. Hyejin missed this. She unlocked her phone and put her feelings in a message, soon drifting off to sleep when she pressed the button.

When she awoke, it was already noon, tasted like bile, and a migraine resounded in her skull. Hyejin checked her messages. I miss you, she said. Wheein didn’t reply.

She wasn’t startled by the lack of reaction at this point, but her heart was struck nonetheless. Hyejin deleted the message thread. She secluded herself in the bathroom for half an hour, wishing for either the headache or the heartache to end. And eventually, one of them did.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Wheein’s mother opened the door, her face lighting up when she saw Hyejin and her family. “You guys made it!” She stepped aside. “Hurry up inside! You guys must be freezing.”

“Don’t mind if we do,” Hyejin’s father said, rubbing the stubble on his chin. “I swear, the rainy season has been relentless this year.”

Wheein’s mother shrugged. “At least it’ll make the sunny days that much more brighter.”

“If our town doesn’t drown before then,” he grumbled.

Chuckling, she pointed at the rack beside him. “You can leave your umbrellas over there and the shoes by the door.”

The family nodded, Hyejin’s father closing the door as everyone else proceeded to slip off their sneakers.

“Do you happen to know where Wheein is?” Hyejin asked, surveying the other guests, some of them she recognized from her neighborhood and some of them new.

“Well, actually, she’s—”

“Oh, no you don’t!” Hyejin’s father playfully wrapped his arm around Hyejin’s neck, putting her in a headlock.  

Hyejin tried to pull away from her father’s grip, irritated when he wouldn’t budge. “Come on, let go!” she grunted, slapping his bicep repeatedly.

“You were practically with Wheein your entire vacation,” he chided. “Spend some time with your pops for once.”

“I’m sorry I was working on the music video,” she murmured.

“We both know that's not the only reason.” He swayed both of them back and forth. “Am I not hip enough? Is that it?”

Hyejin’s mother smiled. “Just humor your father for a bit, Hyejin. Then, you can look for Wheein.”

Hyejin frowned, but sighed and caved in. “Okay, fine. I do feel guilty for not being around you guys a lot.”

Her father cheered and led her towards his co-workers to brag about Hyejin’s experiences while her sisters groaned and her mother laughed.

She had to admit, Hyejin missed this. She realized she missed her mother’s thoughtfulness, though it made people feel guilty at times, as Hyejin’s mother handed haemul jeongol to Wheein’s mother as a thank-you gift for the invitation. She realized she missed her father’s spunk, though it annoyed people at times, as he reenacted his last fishing trip to Hyejin while his colleagues kept insisting that he was romanticizing the cod he caught. She missed her eldest sister’s sensibleness, though people saw her as condescending at times, as she asked how Hyejin was sustaining now that she lived alone.

“You should introduce me to one of your celebrity friends,” the middle sister suggested.

Hyejin missed her second elder sister’s teasing attitude. To an extent. Hyejin rolled her eyes, leaning back against the kitchen counter as she crossed her arms. “I’d rather not let renowned superstars know that you’re related to me.”

“Come on, don’t be like that!” She pouted and Hyejin groaned in disgust. She sometimes forgot that she was the baby in the family with how her second elder sister acted. “How about a singer from your company?”

“Never.”

“What about that man you brought with us at the party?”

“Are you serious?” Scoffing, Hyejin raised her index finger. “First of all, he’s the cameraman. Second of all, you better leave him alone. Third of all, he has a wife and son. Fourth of all—”

“Oh my god, you’re not done?” she asked, taken aback.

Hyejin pretended that she wasn’t interrupted. “Why do I feel like you just want to date someone that’s not living in Jeonju?”  

“All the guys here!” She leaned closer to Hyejin, careful to not be heard by their father. Currently, he was distracted as he cheered on their mother, who won three consecutive games of poker. “Maybe, I want the Seoul experience.”

Hyejin promptly and appropriately leaned away. “You are…” The next words in her mind failed to come out when she noticed their mother glance their way as their father passed out cards. “So unique.”

Her older sister followed her gaze, bursting out laughing when she saw why Hyejin’s words lacked their usual bite. “Great to have you back, Hyejin,” she said, slapping Hyejin’s back.

Hyejin winced, rubbing the fresh sore. “I’m going to get a drink.”

She walked towards the cooler and lifted the lid, the chill heightening her senses as she helped herself to a beer bottle. Snatching a bottle opener from the counter, Hyejin pried off the cap and took a swig.

She observed her surroundings, impressed but not surprised to see the huge turnout. Wheein’s mother had a spirited, friendly personality that attracted many. That charisma Wheein inherited was one of the reasons why Hyejin and Wheein were so close. Were. The word rung in her head like a bell as she took another sip.

Her eyes lifted their gaze to the hall opening and she froze, the bottle against Hyejin’s lips. Wheein’s smile was affectionate, genuine, and directed at someone else. There was a burning hum in Hyejin’s chest. She was certain that it wasn’t from the alcohol.

Hyejin wanted to go back. She yearned to go back to the time where she was in middle school, back to the time where she didn’t have to question if Wheein’s smile towards her was real, back to the time where she didn’t leave her hometown.

She knew that sacrifices were inevitable when she left to pursue her dream as an idol. But Hyejin never thought Wheein would be one of the things she had to give up. In hindsight, if she knew, Hyejin wouldn’t have gone in the first place.

Before Hyejin turned away, she saw Wheein’s expression change. It was subtle and slow, but evident. Her smile dimmed as she looked down, away from the person she had been talking to. When she brought her head back up, there was a grimace. Wheein opened to say something before turning away.

Hyejin’s eyebrows creased in worry and she looked over at her family. Her sisters were too busy talking to each other and her father was busy bickering with a poker player, most likely accusing the other of cheating. Hyejin’s mother caught her stare, but she only smiled and held a finger against her lips. Nodding, Hyejin placed her bottle on the counter and left the kitchen.

She looked around, her eyes falling on the guests, but couldn’t make out Wheein’s silhouette. Her head turned to the left and she paused, blinking in surprise when she saw her manager observing her with an amused look on her face.

“You’re looking for Wheein.” It was more of an accusation than a question.

“Yeah, I am.” Hyejin eye’s narrowed, realizing. “Were you the one talking with Wheein?”

The manager held up her hands. “Don’t act so defensive. I didn’t mean to make her uncomfortable.”

“What did you say?”

She was silent, taking in Hyejin’s anxious expression. “I asked about you.”

Hyejin stiffened, her stomach dipping. She looked down, aware that she must’ve looked pathetic. “Oh.” Of course it was because of me.

Sighing, the manager settled her hand on Hyejin’s shoulder. “You should talk to her.” Her tone was firm, but caring. She pointed behind Hyejin. “She went upstairs.”

Hyejin turned around, catching the wooden stairs. “Okay,” she whispered. She glanced back at her manager. “Thank you,” she said, before making her way to the second floor.

The manager watched Hyejin’s figure ascend the staircase, shaking her head. “Kids these days,” she muttered to herself.

The hall on the second floor was deserted, the sounds coming from downstairs became muffled as Hyejin walked toward Wheein’s room. Her door was familiar, the same ‘No boys allowed’ sign attached on top and the door knob adorned with scratches. She could hear Wheein’s voice, but wasn’t able to decipher what she talking about or who she was talking about. Hyejin frowned, having a strong hunch on who.

Closing her eyes, Hyejin pressed her head against the doorframe and held onto its handle. She needed to do this, she had to do this, she wanted to do this. Hyejin didn’t want to be left in the dark anymore. She wanted the truth. She wanted to know when exactly did Hyejin make a tear in their relationship. And only Wheein could answer her question.

Hyejin knocked on the door twice and turned the doorknob.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Wheein stared out the windowpane, watching the rain cascade onto the glass. She sighed and rubbed her forehead, fatigued from conversing with all of her distant relatives.

She felt a tap against her shoulder and she slightly winced. Preparing herself for another cycle of “how are you” and “you grew up so much,” Wheein turned around. Her eyes widened, surprised to see the cameraman and manager rather than a family member. Hyejin was nowhere to be found.

“Hello, Wheein!” The cameraman waved while the manager bowed.

“Oh my god, it’s you guys!” Wheein said excitedly. “I almost didn’t recognize you, now that you don’t have your equipment on.” She poked at the man’s side. “I didn’t expect you to be so handsome,” she teased.

He laughed, scratching his cheek. “Thanks, I guess.”

“Hyejin’s mother insisted that we come with them,” the manager explained. “We offered to stay behind and watch the Ahn household while they visited your home. However, she claimed that she didn’t want us to spend the Lunar New Year alone. We promise to not cause any trouble.”

“It’s no trouble at all,” Wheein said. “Make yourselves at home.”

“Why, thank you,” the cameraman replied cheerfully. “If you need me, I’ll be where the beer is.”

The manager groaned and rolled her eyes while Wheein snickered, watching the man enter the kitchen.

Turning to Wheein, the older woman regarded her up and down with a deadpan expression. “Can I ask you something?”

Wheein blinked, feeling a little awkward now that she was alone with the more serious counterpart of Hyejin’s associates. “Sure, what is it?”

Hyejin’s manager cleared . “I promise it’s nothing serious. It’s just something that’ll benefit the music video.”

“I thought we were done with filming though.”

“Well,” she crossed her arms. “We are. But consider this as a behind the scenes interview, something the fans can look back on if they’re curious with anything.”

Wheein hummed, nodding. “Okay.”

“What do you like most about Hyejin?”

Wheein’s eyes widened. “Huh?”

The woman shrugged. “What do you think is Hyejin’s best quality? Something you could always look forward to when you’re together.”

“Oh.” Wrapping her hand around her wrist, Wheein turned her gaze towards the falling raindrops.

One droplet splashed on the glass. Wheein remembered how Hyejin approached her boldly, admitting she wanted to be her friend right away. Two droplets. Wheein remembered how Hyejin refused to share her food with Wheein, complaining about how big the latter’s bites were, but offered to buy her another plate instead. Three droplets. Wheein remembered the calls they had while Hyejin was training, saying that she missed her home but had never felt so exhilarated in her life.

Wheein found it hard to breathe. “Her honesty,” Wheein confessed and it was the truth. “I love her honesty the most because I never have to worry about her hiding secrets from me.”

“Are you okay?” The manager frowned in worry. “You don’t look so well.”

“I—” Wheein tore her gaze from the window. “I need to leave.” She her heel, walking towards the stairs, ignoring the other woman’s protest. She forced out her apologies when she bumped into someone, not bothering to glance their way.

She needed to get away from here, from the rain, from the memories. Away from Hyejin.   

Wheein hurried inside her room and closed the door. Her eyes stung and she wiped them dry, her hands quivering. Even when she was away, she was still remembering. She turned to the left, taking notice of how hard the rain fell since her window had no blinds.

She backed away and sat down on her bed, averting her eyes from the sight. Taking out her phone, Wheein put her call on speakerphone, hoping it would be enough to block out the noise outside. Hoping it would be enough to forget.

“Hello?” Myung-Hee’s voice was loud and clear. “Is something wrong, Wheein?”

Wheein talked with Myung-Hee, discussing anything from why she called to asking about Myung-Hee’s situation. She tried focusing on Myung-Hee’s voice, but could still hear the way the rain pitter-pattered onto the glass.

“I’m sorry.” Wheein sighed. “Ever since I came home, all I’ve been practically doing is complain to you.”

“It’s fine, I would have done the same thing.” Myung-Hee hummed. “But I’ll admit, I’m almost jealous.”

Wheein tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

She sighed dramatically. “If only you were as worried about my confession as you were with this.”

Wheein laughed weakly. “Well, actually, I was pretty nervous. When you confessed, I—”

“What?”

Wheein’s heart stopped, her phone slipping from her grasp and landing on the mattress.

“Huh?” Myung-Hee asked. “Wheein? Are you still there?”  

Her words failed to reach Wheein’s words as she slowly turned around. Wheein didn’t notice Hyejin enter the room, who was now standing in front of the window.

“What?” Hyejin repeated, her voice barely a whisper. However, it was enough for Wheein to hear, blending with the sound of the heavy rain.

Hyejin’s expression was so different—so hurt, compared to how she looked at Wheein when they reunited. Wheein felt like she was suffocating, drowning nonetheless. She wanted to forget it all the same.

--------------------------------

[Author's Note:] Fun fact, I started writing this in Valentine's Day but since it's not Valentine's Day anymore I don't feel guilty for posting this.