Stuck

the cons of being stuck and its aftermath

(Part I)

The fireworks had started and soon Hope started playing in the background. Krystal fumbled with her bag, blindly searching for her earphones. The loud cheering of the crowd outside intensified and she winced, feeling each laughs, joyous shouts and images of the excited crowd like slaps of reality mocking her.

“The world wouldn’t stop for a broken heart.”

She remembered the voice of her sister warning her that day when she refused to attend her schedules, too torn by Sulli’s dating scandal to function. Suddenly, she had the urge to throw her bag away; to just throw everything away and get out of there.

Sulli’s not there anymore (not that Krystal thinks she’ll ever come back) her sister left her (though she emphasized that she didn’t want to go, that didn’t change the fact that Krystal was now left all alone, afraid to go outside and face the people in fear of being the subject of people’s scrutinizing gaze in her sister’s place) and her other group members were all busy acting unaffected by the ruckus happening behind the scene, salvaging (more like savoring since there’s no way they could salvage something SM doesn’t want anymore) whatever’s left with their group’s now dying career. There’s no one and nothing left for Krystal to hold on to or to stick there for. The only thing left was the self-pity for knowing she was, indeed, too dependent of her older sister and the reality that she’s nothing but stuck without her.

The frustrations building up to the point she couldn’t handle, Krystal broke down. She held her head down, hiding her face behind curtain bangs, gritting her teeth to suppress helpless sobs she knew her sister won't be there to for. She could feel the worried staffs’ stolen glances and didn’t dare look up. She already pitied herself too much; she didn't need any more of that.

More fireworks were fired and all Krystal could do was shook in place and sobbed as the memories of her sister squealing and clinging onto her drowned her senses. She misses her. She misses her sister so damn much.

Suddenly, she felt something being placed on her ears and the deafening sound of fireworks began to be faded by music. She looked up just in time her tanned-skin sunbae crouched in front of her. It took a while before she realized it's her sunbae's phone which was connected to the earphones on her ears. Confused, she looked around, trying to figure out what's happening, only to realize the staffs previously inside the tent were now gone.

“I miss her too, you know,” Yuri said to catch her attention.

Krystal dumbly stared at her as the girl started petting her head like she used to do to calm her older sister down. “That scaredy-cat,” she said, looking down with a strained smile, eyes flickering with something Krystal found familiar yet she couldn’t exactly identify.

Noticing the look Krystal was giving her, Yuri gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulders before standing up. Krystal opened but her sunbae spoke even before she could mutter a sound.

“Sica asked me to do this. She texted me just now.”

Despite her sunbae’s effort to sound nonchalant, there’s no way of hiding that hurt Krystal saw on those eyes. It really reminded her of someone but couldn’t recall who exactly. She saw that kind of face somewhere.

She watched as her sunbae breathed deeply with a faraway look in her eyes and shoved her hands in her pocket before she looked at her from the corner of her eyes.

“Please, don’t take this against her, Soojung-ah. She cares about you so much.”

Yuri sounded as if she’s holding big words in, swallowing them back to until they’re too many, enough to choke her.

“She could hurt anyone else, if she needed to, but never you. Believe me, she told me that once.” She held Krystal’s gaze, an effort to show sincerity behind her words, yet what Krystal saw was pain, disappointment and betrayal; a picture of a promise not made, “I didn’t believe her too at first but I do now. She’ll do anything for you.”

Yuri smiled and it was so breathtakingly beautiful, the sadness in her eyes flickered and flickered and flickered until they disappeared, blinked shut behind slightly puffy eyelids. Suddenly, Krystal remembered where she’d seen that look before.

In the mirror. 

Back then, after Sulli told her she couldn't love her.

She forced herself to smile back at Yuri; her sunbae needed it more than her.

Yuri nodded. “Keep my phone for now. Cheer up, okay?” Then she went back to the stage, returning to the kkabyul persona every Sones in the world had known her for.

Krystal wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Sniffing, she swiped Yuri's phone unlock. She sighed when she saw the wallpaper. Her gaze dropped to where her sunbae had exited and looked at the picture on the phone again.

It’s an unpublished picture taken during their Las Vegas photo shoot; a picture with all nine SNSD members, where Yuri was holding her sister’s hand tightly while smiling for the camera, and her sister whose ears were red while she's subtly looking at their intertwined fingers.

Krystal leaned back to her seat, hands clutching the phone tightly. She’s suddenly too aware of the fluttering feeling in her stomach and erratic thumping of her heart which only happened when she's with Sulli. She wondered if it’s from the relief brought by the reassurance that she’s not the only one stuck without her sister or from the sudden desire to have that dark pair of loving eyes be stuck on her instead. 

Three days later, it took her about three YulSic videos to figure it’s the latter.