Since you were young, you had a specific goal set in mind - to debut.

Once that was checked off your list, you thought that nothing could compare to the emotional toll it had on you. That was, until Kim Chaewon came into your life.

You won’t deny that you were crushing on the other Kim during Produce 48, but you pushed your feelings aside momentarily as crushes are something you shouldn’t be thinking about when you were being pitted against 95 other girls to land a spot in the final line-up.

Through a miracle, you both made it into IZ*ONE.

Your feelings definitely manifested over the 2 years you’ve been with Chaewon. It might have been blatantly evident too, seeing as how some of the girls noticed early on. 

You’re at a breaking point though; the feelings that you’ve been holding back for so long need to be said, yet you’re terrified of what would happen. 

But being in your comfort zone only goes so far, and you reckon that letting these unsaid words be buried deep in your heart does no one any good - you’re just prolonging the inevitable and that’s not healthy at all.

That’s why you have to do this today.

“Yujin-ah, I can’t do this,” you shriek at the younger girl who’s lying on her bed.

Yujin furrows her eyebrows at you as if she hasn’t heard you repeat yourself for the nth time. “Here we go again.” 

“Maybe I should just give up on this plan and stay friends with Chaewon forever like how we’ve always been.”

Putting headphones on top of her ears to avoid listening to you, she states, “Whatever floats your boat.”

Teenagers, you groan to yourself.

You walk over to the other girl who seems to be of no help today and at a last resort, you tap on her shoulder mouthing, “Help me!”

She takes off her headphones annoyedly and makes a face at you. “Hey Minjoo, my advice for today won’t change from the other dozens of times we’ve gone over this. Just be honest, face your fears, and stop delaying it for another day! Don’t come complaining to me when Chaewon dates someone that isn’t you because you don’t have the guts to confess!”

A dark pit in your stomach grows when you think of Chaewon being with someone else and you really don’t want to witness the scene right before your eyes.

“Each day that you hold off on telling her, she’s one day closer to finding someone else. I wasn’t saying that to scare you or anything, but if you don’t make a move, someone else might.” She gives you a pat on the head as her way of offering comfort after seeing the grim expression on your face.

“I know that, but I’m scared,” you run your hands through your hair as a coping method, something you do in hopes that you stop thinking too much.

“That’s how I felt too, you know, with Wonyoung. Although once you tell her how you feel, it’ll feel like a big burden has been lifted off your shoulders.”

“I don’t doubt that. But at least Wonyoung said yes to you and you’ve known her since the Starship days. What if she says no?”

Yujin scratches her nape, trying to put together words that won’t insult you nor Chaewon. You feel bad that she’s stuck in the middle of this situation but at the same time, you don’t really know who else to turn to.

“If she says no, then you have to respect her decision. But that doesn’t mean that you’re not allowed to feel hurt about it, and if it’s too hard to be her friend then you can also have some time off from her too for your own healing. Also! I hope you know that I’ll be rooting for you and Chaewon’s happiness as always. Just have confidence in yourself and say everything that you’ve wanted to tell her this whole time.”

A few hours after your talk with Yujin, you decide to finally do something. The first thing you do is grab your phone so you can text Chaewon. 

You purse your lips over what to say. You don’t want to say something like ‘hi’ or ‘what’s up’, because that’s going to lead to nowhere and you’d just end up chatting about, you don’t know, what’s for lunch or something less important than your feelings. 

“Just ask her if she’s free…” Yujin looks over your shoulders and gives you a goofy grin. “It’s not that hard, yenno.”

Muttering a ‘shut up’ to Yujin, you text Chaewon with exactly that.

A minute after sending the text, you hear her footsteps by your door. She knocks twice and opens it, looking at you expectantly.

Chaewon greets you with a smile, “What’s up?”

“Can we talk?” you catch Yujin who glances over and mouths you ‘good luck’.

“Sure, let’s take a stroll around the park nearby.”

The two of you make your way to a secluded bench and sit down. Chaewon laces her hands in yours, looking at you expectantly like a curious cub while you’re sitting there, tongue tied and frozen. Your eyes quickly divert away from hers, looking down at your hands clasped together. 

‘What are we?’ is something you’ve always wanted to ask her, but knowing Chaewon, she’d give a half-assed answer and you don’t want to hear that from her. You let go of her and shove your hands into your pockets, so that you’re not distracted by how warm she feels and how it’s distracting you from what you really want to say.

“Is everything alright?” She asks you, a hint of worry on her face as she sees that you’re not saying anything.

Okay, you probably should’ve prepared for this a lot better than just sitting there like a statue.

You blink a few times as you gulp to yourself. “Well, it’s just…”

“Is it about me?”

You refuse to look at her, for you’re afraid to see what kind of face she’s making and afraid that you’ll change your mind just from one glance at her.

But you can’t give in this time. Honesty is the best policy, right?

“I like you,” you tell her in a low voice, tears threatening to spill out of your eyes at any point. 

There’s a pause, a long pause. She keeps mum and stays still, why isn’t she saying anything? The silence is killing you and you just want to get this over with once and for all. You’re not sure how much longer you can keep sitting here with your heartbeat pounding like crazy.

“Oh.” Chaewon replies after what seems like an eternity.

You feel like someone poured ice cold water on you with that reply. Oh? What was that even supposed to mean? How do you even respond to that?

Somehow, it sounds a lot like rejection, and you don’t feel so well.

“D-Don’t worry about it, I’ll try my best to move on so… it doesn’t affect the team,” your voice shakes as you speak and you’re certain that she recognizes it too.

As you look up at her, you see agitation plastered on her face. For what reason though? Do you dare ask? At the same time, you don’t want to know because it might be better off not knowing. You don’t want to hear things you’ve been hearing from others since you were younger, such as not being confident enough or that there’s nothing special about you other than being a pretty face. 

From either embarrassment or rejection, you sense tears beginning to well up in your eyes. You quickly get up from the bench and turn away from her to wipe it, so she doesn’t notice.

“Minjoo?” you hear her call you from behind.

“We should head back now, it’s lunch time,” a distinct crack resonates in your voice and at this point you don’t care anymore, you just want to escape.

Getting up from her seat, Chaewon doesn’t say anything else but walks alongside you. You feel her staring at you, but you don’t risk looking back at her though for you know it’ll make you uncomfortable and you don’t want to break down in front of her. The whole walk back is miserable and silent, there’s no handholding or arm linking or small talk and it makes you feel so cold and alone.

By the time you’re back and you enter your dorm, everyone else is already seated at the table for lunch. You ignore the alarmed stares of the other members as you walk straight to your room without saying anything.

“Huh? Minjoo? What’s going on-” Eunbi calls your name with caution.

“Minjoo told me that she already ate,” Yujin’s voice echoes behind your closed door, letting you sigh a breath of relief. 

You don’t leave your room for the rest of the day, to everyone’s concern. The only person who you let into your room for the rest of that day is Yujin since she’s your roommate and Wonyoung as moral support for when Yujin isn’t in the room to make sure you don’t do anything stupid.

Somehow, Chaewon reminds you of your first heartbreak.

When your pet passed away.

It came off as a shock to you and you forgot how you once lived your life prior to them becoming a part of you. And when something so routine in your life gets cut off so suddenly like that, you have to rewire your brain to pick up the pieces by yourself.

And in comparison to Chaewon, the feeling of not being able to function properly is much stronger. You’re not surprised though because you would be with her for the majority of the day and she would do things for you such as comforting you whenever you were feeling down, making sure that you had enough snacks in your bag, and so much more.

At this point, you don’t care if she doesn’t return your feelings, you just want your best friend back. You’re confident that she must feel the same way, there’s no way she doesn’t care about the bond the two of you have. Or, that’s what you hope.

You catch her sitting at the dining table eating breakfast by herself. As if she could sense you staring at her, she turns her head to lock eyes with you. 

“Hi.” you say first, mustering up a smile.

“Hey.”

Taking a seat right opposite of her, you notice how she doesn’t take her eyes off you, it’s almost unnerving. It’s as if she’s observing your every action and thinking of what to do or say.

You clear your throat, “I just wanted to tell you that things between us don’t have to be awkward. And let’s just go back to how we once were before, you know, as friends.”

Chaewon frowns at your statement. Almost as if she wanted to refute your statement, she opens briefly but closes it once she sees the pleading look on your face.

“Alright.”

You clap your hands together and say, “Great! That’s all I wanted to say, thanks!”

Actually, it’s not great. But what more can you do?

A look of dissatisfaction is written on Chaewon’s face though. She doesn’t look relieved at all. But why? All you wanted to do was to make amends so things would go back to the way it was before, and isn’t that what Chaewon wants too?

You’re doing her a favor aren’t you?

So why on earth does she look so pained?

“Minjoo… are you really okay with this?” her tone falters, looking at you with uncertainty.

Be strong, Kim Minjoo. Just like how you got over your pet passing away, you’ll recover from this soon too. Time will heal all wounds, that’s what your mother told you many years ago and you hope the ache in your heart will soon subdue.

“I’ll be fine.”

You’re not really fine.

Things were supposed to change.

But not like this.

Promotions for ‘Secret Story of the Swan’ have gone underway and your schedule has been quite hectic these days. Being the MC of Music Core along with guesting on several variety shows has taken up a lot of your energy. You don’t mind it though; these are things that you only get to experience once in a lifetime and you’re grateful for any opportunity that comes by. What you do mind though is how you feel a lot emptier this time around because of a certain someone. One would think that having a full schedule would take your mind off those unnecessary thoughts, but it really doesn’t because the other girls would congratulate you and send you words of encouragement except for her. It’s just been radio silence on her side ever since that day and you accept it for you have no other choice.

The emptiness in your heart became a lot more prominent the day when everyone was waiting to be called on stage to perform. When you looked to see where the noise was coming from, you saw Chaewon and Yena playing around and filming things for ENOZI. The hole in your chest grew tenfold and you couldn’t identify why.

You tried to join into their conversations and after enough tries, you’re exhausted from seeing Chaewon going silent around you and how it makes you feel so out of place.

At first you shrugged it off like it was nothing because you're definitely not the clingy type and it’s not like you don’t want Chaewon to have other friends - that’s just selfish. But after repeated occurrences where Chaewon would always be around Yena and the other girls (that aren’t you), and how she goes out of her way to not interact with you, it seemingly says something.

That you’ve been replaced and aren’t wanted in her life.

Hyewon approaches you in your room unannounced one night after dinner.

“You finished dinner early again,” Hyewon says to you as she closes your door and sits on your chair, eyeing a bag of chips and a bun on your bed. “I guess you skipped dinner early for snacks?”

You quickly shove your snacks into your drawer before Hyewon can attempt to grab them for herself, something you learned while rooming with Yujin, Wonyoung,