[Bonus Chapter] High (To Death)

No Tofu, No Life

    Sana never considered herself a “sad drunk”. In fact, she didn’t really consider herself any kind of drunk at all. She didn’t go to parties (usually) and whenever she did end up drinking, she would hold herself back and stay sober in order to make sure Dahyun was okay. Even if Dahyun wasn’t around, Sana was more of the “motherly” type; taking care of all of her drunk friends, ensuring they had rides home, preventing them from being taken advantage of by any overly enthusiastic partygoers. Although the blonde would never say it herself, she was one of the most responsible eleventh graders around. Perhaps it stemmed from being responsible for her handicapped best friend for a big portion of her life, or perhaps it was from the extra housework and chores she’d had to pick up once her mother passed away. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that, as a result of her lifestyle, Sana had a very low physical tolerance for alcohol (and most other illicit substances). And tonight, that was made abundantly clear.

Sana sat on the diving board in Chaeyoung’s backyard, dangling her legs over the shimmering surface of the pool, allowing the tears to roll down her cheeks and drip into the water, creating tiny, almost undetectable circles of disruption as those salty droplets invaded the vast sea of chlorine. In the distance, what felt like a million miles away, dozens of voices floated about in a swirling cacophony, muted heavily by the sound of club music. No one else was outside but her. It was still too early in the summer to swim in the pool, and the night was uncharacteristically chilly. But Sana didn’t care. She didn’t care for anything at the moment. The world itself was swaying around her and she felt sick to her stomach, but she didn’t care. The red solo cup in her right hand was still half-full with a vile mixture of blue Gatorade and vodka, a mixture that broke through her lips and burnt its way down , settling into her roiling innards and forcing her to fight the urge to retch each time she drank from it.

She glanced up for a moment, staring at the swimming backdoor of Chaeyoung’s house. Eventually, someone would come looking for her. At some point in the night, Tzuyu or Jihyo would notice her absence and find her, either vomiting in the grass or unconscious on the concrete, far too drunk to stand any longer and completely willing to spend the night in the moist mud. Or, maybe, they’d find her at the bottom of the pool, peacefully snoozing beneath those frigid depths, all of the worries and emotional burdens that had been keeping her afloat gone, leaving her bloated body to settle on those tiles like some kind of sinister bed.

Sana shook her head, attempting to push the morbid thoughts away. But she couldn’t help it. They kept creeping back, kept whispering to her about how wonderful it would be to just give up and forget all about her troubles, forget everything that had happened today, forget the heartache that plagued her chest, to forget about… to forget about Dahyun.

At the thought of her former girlfriend, Sana let out a cry of sorrow, barely muffling the noise with knuckles as her tears increased their frequency tenfold. She whined like an injured animal, drawing her knees up to her face and allowing her waterfall of blonde to obscure the outside world from her view. In the shifting darkness of the inside of her eyelids, her memories played out like a movie, an unyieldingly painful, first-person movie that drew out long sobs from her lungs:

“Sana,” her father had begun, looking up from his laptop with a pained, almost pitying expression on his wrinkled face, “Can I talk to you in private?”

His eyes shifted to the wheelchair-bound girl beside his daughter; Dahyun appeared to flinch away slightly, gripping Sana’s hand tighter and unconsciously hiding further behind the older girl’s thigh.

“Alright…” Sana said carefully, dread creeping into her stomach as she turned to grab the handles of Dahyun’s chair, “One sec.”

Dahyun relinquished control of her movement and allowed Sana to push her out of the older man’s office, about halfway down the hallway so that he’s unable to hear their whispers. When the blonde stoops over to caress Dahyun’s face, she notes the hesitance and fear painted on that fairy-esque visage, and it creates an even deeper pit in her stomach.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” Sana murmured, running her thumbs over Dahyun’s pale cheeks, “It’ll be okay. I’ll talk to him.”

“He doesn’t seem too thrilled about it…” Dahyun replied, as her hazel eyes dropped to her lap, “I don’t think he’s going to be okay with us dating.”

Sana hadn’t known what to say. She wanted to comfort the younger girl, tell her everything was okay, that they were probably just being overdramatic, but she felt that false reassurance would only make Dahyun feel worse.

“I don’t think so either,” Sana regretted her words as they came out; Dahyun’s already saddened air deepened into a bleak crestfallenness, “But I’m going to try and convince him. And if I can’t, we’ll continue dating in secret and-”

“No,” to Sana’s surprise, Dahyun shook her head furiously, “I wouldn’t forgive myself if I was the reason you were lying to your father. Both of you have already been through enough… I don’t need to add to that burden.”

“Dubu…” Sana was neigh speechless, as this was the complete opposite reaction that she’d expected from her girlfriend.

“Go talk to him,” Dahyun said, leaning forward and kissing Sana on the tip of the nose, “And no matter how this turns out, I love you, okay?”

“I love you too.”

Sana dipped her head down and gave Dahyun a proper kiss, one that involved two pairs of soft lips locked firmly together, one that harbored longing and desperation and love. It felt like a goodbye kiss.

Sana was snapped back to the present by a gentle tap on her shoulder. She spun around to see the wide, foreign eyes of Chou Tzuyu. The younger girl exuded a measure of concern, as evidenced by the slight frown on and the crinkling of her brow. Judging by the full blush on her cheeks, she was likely intoxicated as well, though nowhere near the extent to which Sana was.

Tzuyu was the youngest in their friend group. Sana had interacted with the black-haired girl the least out of everyone, but from what she’d experienced, Tzuyu seemed to be a moderately pleasant person. She had a weird habit of staring a bit too much, but besides that, Sana had no misgivings about her.

The older girl wiped her face with the back of her hand, but this was mostly out of courtesy; she didn’t care who saw her crying tonight.

“You okay, Sana?” Tzuyu asked, wiggling her way onto the diving board to sit beside the blonde, “I… I heard what happened with you and Dahyun.”

“Mmm. Who told you that?” it took genuine effort for Sana not to slur her words.

“Well, you know how Naeyeon and Jihyo like to gossip… sorry if you didn’t want anyone really knowing,” Tzuyu looked down at the pool water as if she were slightly ashamed of herself for bringing it up.

“No, it’s fine. I figured everyone would know by tomorrow anyway,” Sana let out a sarcastic chuckle before taking another sip of her drink.

“So your dad didn’t want you guys together, huh?”

“Yep,” Sana replied shortly, on a stray ice cube that had slipped out of the rim of the cup and into .

“Is it because you guys are gay, or…?”

Sana sighed and leaned back, pressing her palm against the rough surface of the diving board.

“No, surprisingly. He had his misgivings about that, but that wasn’t the primary reason,” Sana could feel a wave of hot disgust welling up within her, and she sneered, “It was because Dahyun is ing handicapped. You know what he said? He said: ‘Do you really want to be taking care of someone else for the rest of your life?’ And when I told him that I’d been doing that since I met her anyway, he told me I didn’t get it. That being with Dahyun would just impede my potential hopes and dreams, and that I should be focusing on myself right now, and not fruitless romantic endeavors. And I told Dahyun that we could date in secret, that hiding it from my father was an option, but she refused. She didn’t want to cause any more friction in my family, given what happened to my mom. It’s sweet of her, but… , I miss her, Tzuyu.”

    “I’m sorry.”

    Both girls were quiet for a time. While Sana couldn’t stop thinking about the events that had occurred today, she also was reluctant to talk about them. Internalizing her emotions was, in her opinion, much easier than expressing them to someone else. Especially someone who she wasn’t all that close with.

    “Do you wanna smoke a little?” Tzuyu asked after a time, procuring a neatly rolled joint from behind her ear, “I came outside to smoke alone, because it was way too crowded in there and I was getting kind of tired. You can join me if you want.”

    Sana frowned. She wasn’t too confident that smoking was a good idea for her. Mainly because combining alcohol and weed tended to give her a terrible case of the spins, and coupled with her current feelings, it would likely be a detrimental mental strain as well.

    Just then, Sana felt a quick, burst-like vibration in her right pocket.

    “Hang on,” the older girl said, fishing the rectangular device out of her shorts.

    She checked her screen and saw that she had two text messages. One was from Dahyun; the sight of the name “Dubu” still triggered the formation of a lump in , but this message was actually from a few hours ago. Sana had refused to open it, as she wasn’t in the mood for any kind of interaction that night. The second message was from her father.

    “From Dad: What time are you coming home?”

    Sana read the message, registered its contents in her mind, and chose not to respond. Instead, she went to Dahyun’s message, her curiosity getting the better of her as she opened it up.

    “From Dubu: Hi. Are you still going to that party tonight? I know after today you prob don’t wanna talk to me but please be safe. If you need anything, just text me.”

    Before Sana even knew what she was doing, she’d responded to the message, her fingers dancing madly over the virtual keyboard and hitting the “SEND” button with no hesitation.

    “To Dubu: Th eonly thing I ned tonight is you”

    Before the blonde could think about what she’d just sent her (ex) girlfriend, she stowed her phone away and turned to Tzuyu.

    “Yeah, I’m down to get high.”

    Tzuyu smiled, pulled out a lighter, and began sparking the joint.

    As the two girls passed the cigarette between each other, Tzuyu became more talkative. Sana, on the other hand, got quieter and quieter, sinking in to the murky depths of the high until she was completely silent. The younger girl didn’t seem to mind, continuing to drone on about mundane, school-related things that Sana could easily answer with a nod or a well-place "Yep". She didn't care for ninety-five percent of the conversation.

    Sana found that she stopped caring about everything. The only things that mattered were the harsh smoke that was filling her lungs and the smell of chlorine mixed with freshly cut grass that wafted through the air. The pattern of the underwater light that shone under them created an opulent glow that mesmerized her, causing her body to subtly sway back and forth as the wind ghosted across the pool, sending ripples bounding across its surface. She had a vague awareness that she was floating, one that was almost out-of-body in nature, making it difficult to remain sitting in place for longer than a few seconds. Time passed by in an odd, hazy blur that was somehow simultaneously sluggish and rapid. Each movement of Sana’s eyes was jarring and required a few moments of adjusting to whatever new visual stimuli greeted her, even if she knew exactly what to expect.

Her phone vibrated six more times before she even understood what was going on. All of the messages were from Dahyun.

“From Dubu: I know… I’m sorry. I need you too.”

“From Dubu: You’re drunk, aren’t you?”

And nine minutes later:

“From Dubu: Is anyone taking care of you?”

“From Dubu: Sana?”

And now:

“From Dubu: Please answer me”

“From Dubu: I know you’re mad, but I need to make sure you’re okay”

Sana replied again, almost in a trance-like manner, without thought or regard for the words she was typing:

"To Dubu: Im not ok"

“Everything good, Sana?” Tzuyu asked, peering over the older girl’s shoulder at her phone. The close proximity at which Tzuyu was now located caused Sana to become uneasy, and she immediately stood up in order to avoid an awkward situation.

“Everything’s fine. I’m just gonna go for a walk.”

Sana then slipped around Tzuyu, barely managing to stay on the diving board as she half-jogged into the grass of Chaeyoung’s yard.

“Be careful, Sana,” Tzuyu called back, but the blonde wasn’t listening.

The sudden change of surroundings, coupled with the fact that Sana now had to stand up and support herself with her own wobbly legs, were vastly overwhelming to the inebriated girl. The world felt as though it were spinning before her. She could barely understand where she was going, though she was somewhat aware that the neatly cut grass of Chaeyoung’s backyard had become rougher and less well-maintained, and that the lights from the house behind her were growing more and more distant. But for some reason, she kept going. Her body moved relentlessly forward, running from something unseen, something that she knew was mere steps behind her. Something that, if it caught her, would swallow her up and consume her, break her down and end her completely. The panic rose within her chest, her breathing becoming haggard and fast, her footfalls stumbling and wonky. She wanted to cry, wanted to scream, but she could only focus on walking, picking up speed and momentum, somehow remaining on her feet despite the loosening dirt beneath her shoes.

Her journey was finally put to a halt by the arrival of a large, cylindrical piece of wood, one that knocked her off of her feet, sending the poor blonde tumbling to the ground. The abrupt stop finally drove Sana’s stomach over the edge, and she emptied its contents into the moss beside her. The expulsion was oddly passive, as most of her sensations were heavily dulled, and she remained lying on the cold ground, her eyelids fluttering as she threatened to lose consciousness. She remained there for an unknown amount of time, until the flash of her phone screen lit up the space beside her. A clumsy hand snatched at the phone, picking it up without even looking at the caller. Even in her abysmally deplorable state, Sana knew who it was.

“Dahyun,” she groaned, allowing the phone to rest against her ear, her hand barely gripping its sleek edges.

“Sana? Sana what happened? What’s wrong?” Dahyun’s frantic voice was occasionally muffled by the sound of rushing wind, as if the girl were walking through a tunnel.

In the background, Sana could hear two other voices, arguing about something related to directions and a GPS.

“I got too high, Dubu,” Sana admitted, “I got too high, and know I don’t know where I am, and I’m scared, and I miss you. And my stomach hurts.”

“Don’t worry sweetie, we’re coming to get you,” Dahyun promised, “You’re at Chaeyoung’s, right?”

“Mhm… backyard. Who’s we?”

“Yerim and Sooyoung. You didn’t expect me to drive myself, did you?”

Unfortunately for the blonde, the laugh that Dahyun’s joke elicited sent her fragile stomach into another sickening twist, and Sana vomited again. This time it was much more violent, causing her to drop the phone and push herself up onto her hands in order to brace against the force of it, leaving the blonde shaking and clutching her burning abdomen afterwards.

“Sana?! Sana what happened?! Are you throwing up?!”

Sana was unable to respond, as she was too busy vomiting for the third time. The sound of her retching was loud and Dahyun could undoubtedly hear it through the phone speaker, despite the device being several feet away.

The older girl slumped back into the dirt and procured her phone. As she put it to her ear, everything began to close in on her, and needles of hopelessness started to jab into her bones. The pain in her abdomen, the pain in her heart, the panic in her mind - it was all too much. She wanted it all to go away. She wanted to be free, to be sober and lying in bed with her beloved girlfriend.

“Please hurry up, I’m so scared,” Sana sobbed, “I’m not okay, please come Dahyun, please.”

“Oh god-” Dahyun’s voice moved away from the phone for a second as she spoke to someone else, “Sooyoung, drive faster she’s throwing up and I don’t know if she has alcohol poisoning or something… Sana are you still there?”

The blonde was only able to respond with a mewling groan.

“Okay baby just stay on the phone with me, I’ll let you know when we’re there. Just focus on the sound of my voice, and take deep breaths. You’re gonna be okay. We’re gonna come get you.”

True to her word, Dahyun remained on the phone with Sana the whole way there.

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

A scenario that I came up with while listening to "High to Death" by Car Seat Headrest. A little rushed since I started it this morning and I have stuff to do later tonight, but hopefully you like it.

Thanks for reading<3

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JamieStardust
Hey guys! If you enjoy Aespa fics in a fantasy setting, check out my newest fic, "Black Mamba"! It's a Winrina fic that will also feature Red Velvet members.

Check it out here:
https://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/1471733/black-mamba

Comments

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railtracer08
358 streak #1
Chapter 15: This was beautiful 😍 *cries in saida
gnpunpun
#2
Chapter 15: this is legit one of the most adorable and beautiful saida fics i've ever read.
myouivl #3
Chapter 2: how they met was so cute
saidahmo0902 #4
Chapter 15: This is so freaking cute! I seriously cannot get enough of this story. It just gives me so much serotonin <33
Imnoone_13 #5
Chapter 15: Ho did yeri and sooyoung(?) Became good?
Dubusstuff
#6
Chapter 11: I love how Dahyun's father was so respectfully and accepting
Dubusstuff
#7
Chapter 6: I'M CRYING THIS IS SO SAD 😭😭😢
Dubusstuff
#8
Chapter 2: THIS IS ONLY THE SECOND CHAPTER AND I'M DYING OF CUTENESS 😭😭♥️
Teudoongie1
#9
Chapter 15: This is the best!! I really love the plot!
Emkayytee #10
Chapter 15: Still one of the most adorable stories out there of saida !