22 October 2014

The house was dark and quite that late afternoon when Krystal reached home after a tiring day. She sighed the moment she stepped into the house. The atmosphere at home had been quite heavy lately and it got worse since several days ago when she found her sister’s room trashed like the inside of the Titanic after the ship hit the iceberg, while the room owner sat in the middle of the mess, head down resting on her knees crying hard. Three days had passed and Krystal still had no clue what happened to her sister.

Krystal went to the kitchen to see if there were traces of evidence that her sister had eaten lunch. There was a clean-looking plate in the sink so she assumed that Jessica used the plate to heat up a ready meal using the microwave. She then proceeded to her sister’s bedroom to check on her.

Again, Jessica locked herself in the room. Sleeping, Krystal assumed. She knew the older girl had trouble sleeping at night, so she slept during the day. She knew her sister had been consuming bottles and bottles of wine from midnight until dawn. She knew the creative director drowned herself in work as a distraction from what was happening in her life. She knew the ice princess always kept her emotions in check in front of her, but cried herself to sleep every dawn. Krystal was aware of all this and she wished she wasn’t because knowing her sister was in a great pain but still tried to act like everything was normal in front of her hurt so much.

Krystal went back to the kitchen after showering to fix the both of them dinner, although Jessica had not had dinner with her the past three nights. She felt like her sister was suddenly avoiding her. But, why? Things were just fine until she left for Shanghai for the concert. They had dinner together almost every night. Their parents came and stayed in Seoul for two weeks following the news of Jessica’s “huge scandal” and they got to spend quality time as a family, which was something rare since Krystal debuted and Jessica wasn’t the only person in the house with insanely hectic schedules anymore.

The younger Jung came home from Shanghai feeling exhausted after her fainting spell, expecting to be pampered by her big sister but instead she had to help Jessica tidy up the bedroom she trashed. Jessica told her to stay out of it but the younger sister insisted on helping because there were pieces of broken glass on the floor and she couldn’t risk leaving her careless older sister to clean those up by herself.

Two bowls of hot steaming jjajangmyeon were placed on the dining table. Krystal sat there admiring the masterpiece she had just learnt to make from her mother last week. She was about to call Jessica to join her for dinner when she heard footsteps coming towards the dining room. Jessica walked in with her eyes fixed to her phone, making her way to the fridge, not giving a single acknowledgment to Krystal’s existence, who was staring at her with hopeful eyes. She gave a lot of effort to those bowls of black bean sauce noodles and she was going to force her sister to eat it today.

As Jessica shut the fridge door close after taking a bottle of sparkling water, she came face-to-face with Krystal, who was proudly holding a bowl of jjajangmyeon. “Unnie, let’s eat! I made this.”

“You finish it, I’m still full.” Jessica opened the bottle while walking back to the direction out of the dining room.

“I made two servings, for both of us.” She said, still hopeful.

“Leave it in the fridge then, I’ll eat it tomorrow.” Jessica said and left her.

Krystal put the bowl down on the table and chased after her sister, stopping the girl before she could get into her bedroom.

“You can’t live only eating once a day.” She grabbed her sister's hand and dragged her back to the dining room. “Just eat a little. Let’s have dinner together since you’re leaving for China tomorrow.”

Like a miracle, Jessica complied and the dinner went peacefully but quietly. Too quiet for Krystal’s liking. She missed the sister she used to have. The one who cracked jokes, smeared sauce on her face, kicked her legs under the table and transferred all the cucumbers to her plate even though Jessica clearly knew that her little sister despised cucumbers as much as she did.

“How’s the jjajangmyeon?” Chef Krystal asked.

“It was good. You should make it for Mom sometimes.” Jessica smiled a little.

“Why are you avoiding me?”

Jessica was taken aback by the question but she kept her cool. “I’m not.” She said while slurping the noodles.

“You wanna tell me what happened to you the other day?” Krystal tried again.

“What other day?”

“That day when you turned you room into a black hole.”

“I was pissed.” She answered non-chalantly.

“May I know why?”

“It happens to people sometimes, kid. People have bad days. People get angry. It’s part of life. You’ll know when you get older.”

Krystal wasn’t sure if she was entertained or sad hearing Jessica’s sarcastic answer. “I’ve known you my whole life, unnie, literally. I’ve seen you angry, I’ve seen you sad, but that.. thing.. happened to you the other day was something I’ve never seen before.”

“That means you just don’t know me well enough, I guess.”

Krystal sighed. And then stood up all of sudden. “Wait here. Don’t go back to your room yet!” She shouted while running to her own bedroom. She came back in a flash while flipping through a magazine Jessica recognized as last year’s July issue of '1st Look'. The two of them were on the cover of it and she remembered they did the photo shoot in New York last year. Krystal handed the magazine to Jessica. It was opened to a certain page. She then pointed on a paragraph and gestured her sister to read.

1st LOOK: What kind of influence does Jessica have on Krystal?

Krystal: She's really adamant. I think she's always sure about things. I guess she's gentle yet has tenacity. Her firmness is something that I want to learn the most. I'm always learning and also being influenced. I think that I'm a little sister who isn't much help to my sister a lot. My sister is my life's biggest indicator. She's always guided me a lot since school, my trainee days, and even after I debuted. I think we're here together right now thanks to my sister.

1st LOOK: What kind of younger sister is Krystal to Jessica?

Jessica: She's a very reliable sister. Soojung has a mature side as well as a childlike innocence. When I'm having a hard time, feeling lonely, or sad, I could lean on her and be comforted. There are a lot of times where I take care of Soojung, there a