Wendy had expectedly arrived to a dead-drunken Jennie and a destroyed electric guitar lying by the drunken girl’s side. Clenching her jaws, Wendy grabbed the drunk girl by her collar violently and heaved her up.

“Get up!”

Jennie mumbled something incoherently and upon realising that she was being handled so harshly, tried to swat her friend’s arm away.

Wendy let go of Jennie immediately and the girl squealed as she fell in a heap of mess to the ground.

“What was that for, ?!”

“For the destroyed guitar,” Wendy shouted back.

“It is my guitar not yours anyway, why should you care?!” Jennie screamed as she tried to get up.

“It is Lisa’s guitar,” Wendy said coldly, and stared at her crew member’s drunken antics.

Jennie finally stopped trying to get up when she heard the name. Scoffing, she corrected, “It was Lisa’s guitar. She has abandoned it, like how she has done it to us.”

Closing her eyes, Wendy had to tell herself to not let those bitter words from Jennie affect her own emotions. Wendy was over the phase of throwing her own tantrums and behaving immaturely. She was an adult now and so she had to behave like one.

“Jennie, Lisa just began university and wants to focus on her studies,” Wendy tried to reason patiently.

“You had university too, but you didn’t abandon us!” Jennie shouted.

“It is different…” Wendy tried to explain again.

“What is different?” Jennie asked then she paused and broke out in a scathing laughter, “oh right, our Wenwen is a genius and Lisa is a .”

Unable to contain her anger any longer, Wendy grasped Jennie by her collar, dragged her up again and pinned her against the wall.

“Never call me a genius, you know I hate that,” Wendy warned but was met with another bout of drunken giggles from Jennie.

“Stop degrading yourself Jennie. I want you on stage with me for our next performance. You better get your act together,” Wendy tugged harder at her wasted crew member.

Jennie who had been laughing sheepishly all that time suddenly stopped doing so. Her face fell and she buried her face in her hands before she began to sob.  

“I can’t Wendy… you know I cannot write anymore lyrics ever since Lisa left us. My mind just stopped working… I am sure you know that feeling…”

Indeed, Wendy knew, and it stabbed at her heart to be reminded of it in such a cruel way.

“I am sorry Wendy, I should not have shot my mouth off,” Jennie apologised suddenly. “I am such a lousy person, reminding you of things like that…”

What Jennie was referring to was the death of Seungwan’s elder sister slightly more than a year ago. Unable to bear the mounting stress any longer, Seungwan’s elder sister had unfortunately chosen the simplest method to end her troubles; to take her own life. It was later found out that her elder sister had been suffering from depression in silence.

Before her sister’s death, Seungwan had been extremely active in the underground rapping scene and she enjoyed the immense fame she was receiving. As the second child, Seungwan thought that she would never need to worry about fulfilling her family’s expectations since there was her elder sister to fulfil that role and so Seungwan lived freely. Everything changed after her sister’s death and Seungwan, who had once been uncaring and lived life freely was finally hit by reality. 

“Forget it, I am over that. So, are you finally sober enough to talk to me yet?” Wendy asked.

Jennie sighed at her pitiable self and then nodded. Throwing Wendy’s arm aside, Jennie then picked up the broken guitar that laid pathetically on the floor.

“Yes, I am but first, can you give me a ride?” Jennie asked as she eyed over to Wendy’s Harley.

Wendy scoffed. “Whatever, get on kiddo.”

During the past year, even though Wendy had not performed on any stages, she had managed to stay connected with rapping. This was only possible because she had the help of her crew currently made up of herself, Jisoo, Jennie, Rose, and formerly, Lisa. Wendy was the main rapper and made up most of the lyrics with Jennie as a sub-lyricist but more often, Jennie would prefer to showcase her beatboxing skills. Meanwhile the other girls were well-versed in DJing, turntablism, and playing other instruments. Lisa would sometimes like to do a breakdance or two. Together, as a five people team, they were divine. Their crew’s name was the Blue Vanguards, but Wendy’s name soon outshone their crew name. Despite that, there was no jealousy amongst them and the crew later preferred themselves to be called Wendy’s crew instead. They swept awards, big and small alike with their talents.

Jennie’s hair was dishevelled, whipped by the night winds because she had refused to wear a rider’s helmet. The elder girl wasted no time in persuading the girl in doing otherwise and prayed that she would remain sober enough to hold onto her during the ride.  

At least Jennie was calm now, after the breezy ride as she looked out into the night space looking sombre and contemplative.

As usual, Wendy had ridden them to the Han River again. It was a popular location, filled with enough people so neither of them could do stupid, reckless things or even if they did, they could be stopped in time.

“Wendy… tell me how you did it,” Jennie asked suddenly, her eyes still staring out into nothingness.   

“Did what?”

“Overcome all those shadows… Still be who you are in spite of everything…”

Wendy looked impassionedly at Jennie as her mind worked to give her an answer. To be truthful, Wendy cannot be certain that she had completely ‘overcome all those shadows’ in Jennie’s words but at least she was coping, well enough. Besides, she had to be well enough to manage her little crew, the people she cared most about now. Rose and Jisoo had been the least troublesome of them all but Jennie and Lisa were entirely different matters…

Jennie, who had wanted to pursue music all her life had been time and again restricted by her parents. The girl ended up not applying for university after a bout of quarrels with her parents.

Meanwhile, Lisa had abided by her parents’ wishes and got into business school. Wendy later learnt that Lisa had done well enough to enter the same university as her but they have never met in school nor have Lisa updated them about her school life. It was as though Lisa had intentionally cut off contact from them even before school started. All of them had been upset but Jennie had been the most affected because she had always liked Lisa.

If it had been Wendy in the past, she would have told Jennie straightforwardly that she was still battling her own demons and asked for Jennie to look out for herself but now… Wendy learnt that it is best not to ignore someone when they are at the lowest point in their life.

“I just constantly remind myself that I would not starve myself of what I like to do. Having a separate self helped me… I don’t know whether it is healthy or not but as long as I am conscious of what I am doing, I will continue doing it,” Wendy said honestly.

Jennie whipped her head round to stare in Wendy’s direction. “Really…? How can it be healthy?” Jennie asked sceptically.

Wendy shrugged nonchalantly and looked up into the night sky herself, kicking her shoes at asphalt road. “I don’t know if it is but I do enjoy it, to some extent.”

Jennie chuckled. “Ooooh. You enjoy leading a double life?”

Directing a wry smile at Jennie, Wendy nodded, “yes, I do.”

An unreadable smile crept into Jennie’s face as she returned her attention back to the dark night sky. The night breeze brushed against their faces like tantalizing fingers and ruffling their hair lightly. Silence descended upon them for a long while before Jennie began the conversation randomly again.

“Until when?”

“Until when what? Be specific, Jennie,” Wendy returned and took a glance at her watch. It read 12.34am.

“Until when can you keep up with this divide in your life?” Jennie asked then added more slyly, “until you implode?”

That question amused Wendy too because for the longest period of time, she had asked herself that as well and the answer that came back was that she did not know. Wendy prayed that she never would have to suffer like her sister did. In fact, the reason why she was consciously maintaining two personalities was because she wanted to be herself in two different settings and neither of it was fake.

As Seungwan, she hated th