When you feel that even the air you breathe is an enemy,

I’ll cross oceans in a heartbeat to tell you differently.

 

Haseul wakes up feeling heavy.  She feels the weight bearing down on her, and she finds it difficult to breathe.

“Wha-?” she shifts on her bed, as much as one with a body lying directly on top of them could.  “Yerim-ah,” she finally croaks when she couldn’t move anymore.

“Ne,” said girl mumbles.

“Can’t breathe.” Haseul rasps, her voice strained from the effort.

Yerim raises her head and looks first at Haseul then to both her sides.  She leans towards her right, “Yeojin-ah, move a bit.  Unnie can’t breathe.”

The youngest groans, “Why can’t you ask Hyejoo unnie to move?”

“Cos she might punch me if I wake her up.”

“I might punch you too, unnie.”  Yeojin challenges.

“No, you won’t.  Move.”

“Ugh~” the youngest groans again but, nevertheless, rolls over to her right to give room for Yerim.

Yerim rolls right beside Yeojin and settles on Haseul’s right side.  Yerim reaches behind her, finds Yeojin’s arm, drapes it over her, and places it, along with hers, over Haseul’s tummy.

And with that, the sleepy discourse ceases, and Haseul feels the two go back to their slumber.

She’s not fully awake herself and is teetering in and out of consciousness.

“I can kick them out if they’re bothering your sleep, unnie.”

A voice, coming from her left side, murmurs, and it shocks Haseul to complete wakefulness.  Though it takes her a while to process the statement, she laughs once she does.

Haseul carefully turns to the other occupant of her cramped bed and smiles.  “It’s fine, Hyejoo.  It’s time to wake up anyway.”

Hyejoo lets out a breath, eyes still closed.  She opens them afterwards and sees Haseul’s small smile.  She gives the older girl a smile back.  “Good morning, unnie.”

“Good morning, Hyejoo.”

The two smile more widely at each other, until Hyejoo’s dims.  It’s miniscule, but Haseul catches it.

“What’s wrong, Joo?”

“I wanna ask you to have breakfast with me,” Hyejoo starts, “but this is so comfy that I don’t wanna move yet.”  The girl pouts, and Haseul can’t stop herself from cooing at the sight.

“Ten more minutes?”  Haseul asks the younger girl, finding herself unwilling to get up as well, despite the predicament.

Hyejoo nods before snuggling closer to her unnie.

Haseul nuzzles the girl’s hair, and before long, the two of them fall back to sleep.

 

Their ten minutes turn to thirty, and Haseul gets roused by soft taps on her shoulder.

“Unnie?  Wake up.  Breakfast is ready.”

Haseul slowly opens her eyes.  She cranes her head slightly and blinks at the one who woke her.  She sees blonde hair and registers that it’s Chaewon.

“Good morning, unnie.  The bathroom’s clear, so you can wash up before you go to the kitchen.”  Another voice says from behind Chaewon.  Haseul recognizes it as Heejin’s, and she promptly returns the greeting.

“Go on, unnie.  We’ll wake them up for you.”  Heejin prompts, guiding Haseul towards the door.

“Okay, thank you.”  Haseul says before going out and proceeding to the bathroom.

She goes about her morning routine a bit more quickly, wanting nothing more than to go to the kitchen and have breakfast with her members.

Once done, Haseul treads her way to the kitchen.  She hears lively chatter coming from it, and she feels a small smile form on her lips, in time with the skip of her heartbeat.  From there, she ambles towards her designated destination.

Hyunjin is the first one to see her.

“Haseul unnie!  Good morning!  Come on, let’s have breakfast.”  The girl beams at Haseul.

Haseul smiles back and greets everyone in the kitchen.

“That smells good.”  Haseul comments, looking at the wide selection of food (that she noticed are all her favorites) in front of her.  “Did you guys make all of these?”

“Yep,” Sooyoung answers, “and before you say that we ‘didn’t have to,’ I’ll have you know that it wasn’t just the three of us who prepared everything, so it was no biggie.”  The tall girl finishes, in an effort to allay the concern blooming in their leader.

Still, Haseul opens to protest, but Vivi cuts her off this time.  “And no ‘but still,’ either.  We’re more than happy to prepare these.”  The eldest says, capping her statement with a broad smile that’s meant to reassure.

All protests are completely taken away from Haseul when they hear the other members trickle into the room.

“Great!  Let’s eat!”  Sooyoung announces, and everyone takes their seat to have breakfast.

 

Breakfast had been a loud and animated affair that Haseul is thankful for the mellow interlude of Jungeun and Jinsol’s last minute repacking of her stuff.

Jinsol had finally gotten the prints of the pictures she’s been taking for the last few weeks.  She wants Haseul to have them, which is why she and Jungeun are huddled over Haseul’s suitcase to pack the pictures, along with the other trinkets that the other members had gotten for their leader to keep.

It’s just the three of them in the room.  The others had been banned by Jungeun from entering the room and “helping” them pack.

Haseul smiles as she remembers the pouting faces of the maknae line.  She’s grateful for the small respite that Jungeun and Jinsol have provided, though.

“Okay, that’s perfect!”  Jungeun announces, prompting Jinsol to move the cover.  Together, they zip up Haseul’s suitcase.

Loud thuds are then heard, and the door flies open.  “Wait!”

The three snap their heads towards the door, hands clutching on their respective chests.

“What the hell, Jiwoo?”  Jungeun exclaims.

“You need to put this in!”  Jiwoo demands, ignoring the gripes of LipSoul.

Haseul squints at the object the younger girl is holding.  It’s a picture, of what, Haseul can’t tell.  What she does know is that neither Jungeun nor Jinsol will open her suitcase again just to place the said picture along with the others Jinsol has placed in an envelope in the suitcase.

Haseul’s proven right when the two start yelling at Jiwoo that they’ve just closed the suitcase and that they can’t go through the repacking all over again.  Jiwoo is adamant, though, and yells back that’s its very important that Haseul has the picture she’s holding.

By then, the other members have gathered in front of the room, curious of the commotion inside.  Sooyoung and Vivi move forward, trying to get the three to stop shouting, all the while effectively blocking the maknaes from the disturbance.

The plan of the two eldest doesn’t work, and they end up adding to the ruckus.

Meanwhile, Haseul is finally able to calm her wildly beating heart, and she stands from her perch on her bed.

“Okay, okay, enough excitement, you guys.  Save your energy for practice later.”  She says as she approaches the other five members of the unnie line.

She moves towards Jiwoo and places one hand on her shoulder to calm her, while the other takes the picture from her hand.  “How about I put this in my bag so we don’t have to open the suitcase anymore?”  She suggests gently.

The bickering has stopped by then, and Jiwoo looks at her straight in the eye.

Haseul looks at her back, so she sees it all happen.  She sees Jiwoo’s eyes water, sees Jiwoo’s lips wobble, and sees Jiwoo jump towards her and envelop her in her arms.

“I don’t want you to go, unnie.  But I know that you have to, so you can feel better.  And I want you to feel better, so I can see your beautiful, bright smile again.”  Jiwoo says, as she cries openly.

Haseul is stunned to silence, but she feels the welling in her eyes when Jiwoo tightens her hold of her.

“I promise that I’ll behave and that I’ll make sure that everyone behaves, so you won’t have to worry so much about us; so you’ll always just have happy thoughts of us.”  Jiwoo continues.

Haseul stays still, processes every word she’s heard, and tries to formulate something, anything.  But she’s too stunned, too overcome with a rush of emotions.  It’s only when she hears ten different voices muffled by crying while stating, “I promise too,” that the tears flow out from the leader’s eyes.

Haseul knows she’s shaking from the sobbing, but with eleven bodies holding her, grounding her, she doesn’t feel anything but warmth from the love and appreciation radiating from them.

 

Later, when they have calmed a bit, her members see her off to the car.  They exchange farewells, hugs, promises of always keeping in touch, and “I love you”s.

Her eyes are puffy, she knows, and she’s thankful that her parents don’t comment on it.

It’s when she wipes a stray tear from her eyes that she realizes that she’s still clutching onto the picture she took from Jiwoo earlier.

She looks at it and recognizes it immediately.  It was one from her birthday last year – a personal and unreleased one.  They were in the practice room, where balloons and other party decors had been strewn all over.  She was in the middle, holding the cake her members had gotten for her, while her members surrounded her, trying to give her a kiss on her cheeks, on her forehead, or on her hair.

She turns the picture, having seen some scribbling before, and there she sees a note that fills her heart up.

“We’ll always be there for you, no matter what, no matter where.  We love you.”

Haseul couldn’t hold back her tears again.  And her mom, this time, couldn’t hold back her concern.  She reaches out to her daughter, wrapping her hand around the young girl’s waist, and pulling her close.  “It’s okay, honey.  You’re gonna get better, and everything will be right where they’re supposed to be.  Everything’s gonna be okay.”

Haseul cries, her one hand clutching onto her mom’s shirt and the other clutching onto the picture of the other members of her family.

She resolves then that ‘for them – for all of them who I love – I’ll get better.’