"So, is this it?"

Chaeyoung stood arms crossed by the door to Gyuri's room, or at least what it used to be for the last few months. 

"What?" 

Gyuri answered, her attention still on her luggage and whatever she was trying to fit into. 

"You're really going."

"I'm really going."

"And we won't be fromis nine anymore."

Trembling.

Gyuri sighed, turning from her luggage and standing up to face the younger girl eye to eye.

"We talked about this, Chaeng. We talked about this for almost an year. Everything will be the same for us. We'll all be chasing our dreams. It's just that you girls, and I'll not be together."

"There can't be an 'us' without 'you'!"

Chaeyoung screamed out with anger. The sound rang across the room. Stop for a moment, calm down, and she began to speak again, still trembling. Something shiny starting to form on her doe eyes.

 "No, nothing will be the same, and you know that too. We can't just go lalala and pretend that you were never here. What about our dreams? Our goals, our wins? The 15 months we spent locked away? 1323 days it took for our win? Did any of it mean anything at all?"

Her tone began to rise again.

"That's enough, Chaeng. We talked about this."

Gyuri was still trying to keep her calm, although her gritted teeth and bowled up fists told otherwise.

"Did I, did we ever mean anything to you?"

"Lee Chaeyoung!"

A moment of silence. Then another. Then another. Then, a small sob. 

"Everything mattered. Every comebacks, every vlives, every videos, and the best and the worst days and everything in between. And you know that."

Gyuri was now calm again. As if she had spit out something heavy that was in her stomach. Chaeyoung began to sob, and she whispered again.

"You know that. You also know that we meant everything to me, just like how you and all the other girls feel."

Gyuri had taken the younger girl in a gentle hug, and now the said younger girl was violently sobbing and trembling against her shoulder like a erupting volcano.

"I loved you all. I still do. But sometimes in life, you have to make a choice. But some choices come at a price. And I happened to make a choice with a dearly cost."

The volcano slowly began to settle down. Yet Gyuri continued on patting her, and went on.

"I'm not asking you to understand. That would be too selfish. But I do want you to know that everything mattered. That I did and still love what we were. I'm sorry."

Sometimes Chaeyoung was just a big baby. And she sure was there, cuddled up safe in the older girl's arms. Voice trembling again, she finally managed to spit a few words. 

"I, I hate you."

After a few uneven breaths, she spoke again slowly between ragged breaths.

"I love you, unnie. I'm sure everyone else does too. I'm sorry for, for being so mean, and I, I understand you. I know we can't stay this way."

And as exhausted Chaeyoung drifted off to sleep, she asked one final question.

"Will you, just, stay with me for now?"

She fell asleep before she could hear her answer.

================

Just wanna point out, this wouldn't be a romantic kind of love. More like family kinda love.

Please feel free to leave comments.