Yerin’s POV

It had been a restless night for all of us. The revelation that our leader had come back led to chaos. I had had my hands full to control the girls. I knew they meant well. We had all been worried sick for our unnie. But I also knew that what our unnie needed the most at that moment was sleep.

My demand for everyone to go quietly to their own rooms and not join Sojung in the living room had almost caused a revolt with the result of waking up our leader. It had taken every little bit of leadership I possessed in my body to make the girls listen to reason.

I closed my eyes as I remembered the hushed yet heated discussion in the entrance room. In the end, they had agreed to sleep in their own rooms. However, they wanted to keep their doors open a crack in case Sojung-Unnie needed help. It was a compromise, but one I had been able to agree to.

I doubted that anyone had fallen asleep. By the small eyes and the dark circles beneath their eyes, I was pretty sure that every member had laid awake in their bed, listening to any signs that Sojung-Unnie was in distress.

“Unnie, how long do you think Sojung-unnie will sleep?” Umji whispered as she took some fruit out of a bowl.

I handed her a knife before shrugging. “I don’t know. But we will not wake her up.”

“Not even when breakfast is ready?” SinB asked. I shook my head. “Fine. What are you doing, Yewon-ah?”

“Fruit salad. Sojung-Unnie needs vitamins. This will give her strength.”

“Here, let me help you!”

I sighed. I turned back to the coffee machine, begging it to go faster. I needed caffeine. Now.

“What Unnie needs is a good, warm breakfast,” Eunha said, placing two pans on the stove. “Yuna and I went to the store earlier and bought everything we might need for that.”

“You already left the house?” Yewon asked. “It’s not even 8 am!”

“We couldn’t sleep,” Yuna said softly after Eunha did not answer. “We thought we might as well do something useful.”

SinB snorted quietly. “Did anyone sleep? Except for Sojung-Unnie?”

We shared long meaningful looks.

I knew I had been right with my assumption. It had been obvious. Especially when I had heard the 97ers leaving the dorm so early in the morning when Eunha usually stayed in her bed until midday. But they had been very quiet, I had to give them that. I had almost missed the soft click of the front door when they had left.

I took out a cup and poured myself some of the freshly brewed coffee. As I took a sip, I tried not to grimace at the bitter taste. I liked hot chocolate more, but I needed the caffeine.

“What…” SinB trailed off, glancing at the door before lowering her voice even further. “What are we going to do when she wakes up?”

“We’ll be there for her,” Yewon answered immediately.

“And we will give her space when she needs it,” I said. “Just be yourself… but maybe a bit more behaved.”

My dongsaengs nodded. “Yes, Unnie.”

“Good. Then let’s start preparing breakfast.”

Eunha and Yuna started debating their options on what to cook while Yewon and SinB started selecting the fruits they wanted to cut. I took another mug out of the cabinet. It would only be a matter of time until Sojung-Unnie would wake up and then -

“Good morning.”

My head snapped around so fast that my neck cracked. It hurt, but I barely paid attention. My eyes widened as I saw my unnie leaning against the doorway of the kitchen. Everyone in the kitchen stopped what they were doing.

“Unnie!”

For a split second, I feared that the girls would rush over to Sojung-Unnie and talk all over each other, bombarding her with the questions that had accompanied them since the last time they had seen and heard from Sojung. I was feeling the same urge to do so. But to my pleasant surprise, the girls quickly pulled themselves together.

“What would you like to eat, Unnie?” Eunha stood in front of the stove. “Eggs? Pancakes? Omelet? French toast? I can do it all!”

“We also still have enough of your favorite cereal.” SinB motioned to the fridge. “Do you want me to get the milk for you?”

“And fruits. I went to the store the other day and bought a bunch of them.” Yewon smiled shyly. “Apples, bananas, grapefruits, grapes, oranges, watermelon, kiwi, mangoes…”

“Yes, we get it, you bought everything in the fruit section.” SinB nudged her friendly and Yewon stuck out her tongue.

“You can never have enough fruit in the house.”

“Of course not.”

“Unnie, would you like some juice?” Yuna raised a glass. “I pressed some fresh orange juice this morning.”

Yewon widened her eyes as a thought hit her. “Oh, I could also make you a smoothie if you like, Unnie?”

Sojung-Unnie gave them a tired smile. It did not quite reach her eyes. “Thank you, but I would love -”

“A coffee?” I filled the cup and carefully walked over where my unnie stood. “Way ahead of you. I made some just now. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the smell woke you up.”

“That might be true.” Sojung-Unnie squeezed my arm and gently took the coffee mug out of my hands. “It smells wonderful. Thank you, Yerin-ah. Thanks, girls.

I took the chance to steal a closer look at Sojung as she took a sip of her coffee. Her eyes were puffy and red. It was undeniable that she had cried last night. My heart ached. If I could, I would have loved to take at least some of the pain from Sojung-Unnie and put it onto myself. I had stopped counting how often I had wished for this to happen.

Taking a deep breath, I turned back to the rest of the girls. “Guys, too many questions at once. Let Sojung-unnie wake up some more, okay? Get back to your tasks.”

Yewon bit her lip and nodded before turning back to the fruits she was cutting with SinB. After a nudge to the side, SinB quickly followed her. Eunha pouted, but also returned to the ingredients in front of her, carefully instructing Yuna what to put into the bowl.

I sighed and caught Sojung’s eyes. A tiny smile formed on her lips.

“This is good coffee,” Sojung mumbled. “You did well, Yerin-ah.”

I shrugged. “I only made coffee. The way you told me you liked it. It wasn’t that difficult.”

“No.” Sojung met my eyes and I almost wanted to look away from the intensity of her stare. It felt as if she was staring directly into my soul. “No, I’m not talking about the coffee. You did well, Yerin-ah. I have always known you could do it. I never had the slightest doubt about it. Thank you for taking care of our girls when I couldn’t. I know it wasn’t easy.”

I glanced down at the floor and played with my fingers. I was grateful that the girls could not hear us over the noise they were creating. Now that I was thinking about it, Eunha was being ridiculously loud with those pots and pans…

“I could have done better… I’m sorry, Unnie. I let you down.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for. You did what you had to do. Did you make mistakes?” Sojung shrugged. “Who cares. I did a lot of them when I started being a leader. I’m still doing them and I still learn with each one I make. You did really well. And you need to stop being so hard on yourself. You could never let me down.”

I shook my head. This was not what I had imagined my first conversation with my unnie would turn out to be. It should not be about myself. “This is not… this is not important right now. How are you doing?”

As Sojung fell silent, I shyly glanced back up. Sojung-Unnie was leaning against the door frame and watching the girls with a faraway look in her eyes. A moment passed before a sigh left her lips. Her shoulders dropped. “I don’t know.”

I hesitated for a second before I laid my hand on her arm. What could I say? No words could properly express the situation. No words could make it better. That was impossible.

“We’re all here for you, Unnie. Whatever you need.”

“I know. And knowing that already helped.” Sojung tried to smile, but I saw that her eyes were glistening with tears. Shaking her head, Sojung slightly turned away from me. “It’s just… sometimes it still doesn’t feel real, you know? I wake up and… just for a brief second I forget. I forget that he’s…”

Sojung’s voice broke. I did not know what to say. Should I even say anything? Should I hug her? Or would it make it worse?

“It’s peaceful,” Sojung said in a quiet voice, “it is so peaceful. It feels like any other day. And then I remember and everything crashes down on me. I feel terrible.”

“Unnie…”

 Sojung sniffed. “He will never come back. I know that, but it’s still hard to believe, you know? It doesn’t seem real. It still feels like a nightmare and I’m waiting every second to wake up. But I’m never waking up.” She glanced down at her mug of coffee. “He will never smile again. I’ll never hear his jokes again. His advice. His voice. What if I forget the sound of his voice, Yerin-ah? What if I forget the sound of his laugh?”

A lump formed in my throat and I blinked away the tears in my eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

Sojung looked at me. Seconds passed between us as we looked into each other’s eyes without saying a word. The silence was becoming unbearable for me. I had to say something, I had to do something, I had to -

“Oh, Yerin-ah… come here.”

Sojung set the mug on the counter closest to us and pulled me into a tight hug. I clenched my eyes shut and clung onto her as the stress and the worries caught up with me. I could not stop a tear escaping my eyes and berated myself even more. This was not about me. Why was I making this about me?

I needed to pull myself together. Right now.

I was setting a wrong example for our dongsaengs. I had to be the strong one. I had to be there for Sojung-Unnie, not the other way around.

But had we not all lost someone close to us? Not our father like Sojung-Unnie, but still a member of our extended honorary family? And it hurt. It hurt so much.

I understood what Sojung was saying. It did feel like a nightmare. I had been holding my breath and waited for the feeling to pass, but it never did. But I had had no time to mourn. I had to organize everything. I had to be there for our members. I had to be there for our fans. I needed to reassure everyone. I needed to make plans for the day Sojung-Unnie came back to us.

I had been too caught up with leading the group and desperately trying not to break down over the loss, that I had hidden it in the back of my mind. I had not been able to afford to show weakness in front of our members. Not when they needed someone to rely on, someone who was strong.

Another tear escaped my eyes, quickly followed by a third, then a fourth. A sob left my lips.

Sojung-Unnie was right. We would never see him again. Never. He was gone. Truly gone. Forever.

“I’m s-so sorry…”

“I know” Sojung kissed the top of my head. “Me too.”

I felt another arm around my shoulders, followed by another pair around my waist, and another hand. I did not have to look up to know that our members had joined the hug.

A soft sniffle came from my right side. A barely hidden sob from my left.

Nobody would feel the loss more than Sojung-Unnie, but we had all lost someone dear to our hearts. A nice man. A good man. A gentle, funny, goofy man. An honorary uncle and a loving father to our leader. And he would be missed. He already was.

His loss had made the world a little darker. All I could hope for was that we would all eventually be fine and overcome it.

I remembered the words Sojung’s father had once said to us a long time ago. Everything would be okay as long as we had each other.

The words had stuck with us. We had repeated them like a mantra during difficult times. Everything would be okay.

Now, in our darkest hour, we only had to believe them ourselves.