Baek Ayeon’s Apartment: January 1^st, 2016, 3:40 p.m. (Present day)

It’s nearly four. Baek Ayeon normally does her skin routine in the morning—which is using a facial cleanser, moisturizer, and on Fridays like today, a facial mask as well. But she had to go out for breakfast this morning, after a very short amount of sleep, so she decides to relax herself by doing her soothing facial routine today. Nobody’s really seen her wear her facial mask before, considering the green color isn’t a necessarily flattering one.

            So when the doorbell rings, she doesn’t really know what to do.

            Should she wash off the face mask? That’ll take too long. But opening the door with a face covered in green paste isn’t a good image. Not to forget, she’s got her hair in curlers and she’s wrapped up in a bathrobe—to summarize, she basically looks like an ahjumma.

            The sound of the doorbell rings again. Ayeon cringes and stands next to her entrance door, unsure of exactly what to do. She sighs and calls out.

            “Um… who is it?” she calls, hoping to her grave that it’s not anyone she needs to impress.

            “Unnie!” She hears Jimin’s voice through the door. Oh, thank God. It’s just Jimin. Ayeon reaches to unlock the door, but stops herself at the sound of more voices.

            “Unnie-ya!” Is that Yerin as well? That’s alright, she doesn’t need to look good in front of long-time friends.

            “Noona!” Ayeon hears two more voices from the hallway. Men?

            Ayeon goes on her toes and peers out of the peephole. There she sees the four figures of Park Jimin, Baek Yerin, Yugyeom and Bambam. The four are dressed cleanly, wearing appropriate clothes and their makeup is done nicely. Their hair is also combed well. They look like saints in comparison to Ayeon. It’s because of this that Ayeon hesitates to open the door, but then she remembers.

            They looked this bad in comparison to her last night.

            Ah, yes. Last night. Now that Ayeon has last night in her head, she also remembers she’s mad at these kids. Oh, she’s annoyed.

            So Ayeon opens the door with a bitter expression, an expression fitting to the green color of her skin. She looks really odd, so the four 97-liners have to swallow a gasp. She looks a little like the Grinch, is something Bambam has to hold back from saying out loud.

            “Yeah?” Ayeon says, not particularly interested in what her guests have to say unless it’s an apology.

            Her venomous tone holds the hungover quartet from speaking first. Wow, she’s scary. Yugyeom, Bambam and Yerin simultaneously push Jimin forward a little to get her to speak first. Jimin, surprised by the sudden push, stammers over her words.

            “Ah… Ayeon Unnie,” Jimin laughs nervously, in an attempt to loosen up, “You look funny. Is it Spa Sunday on a Friday?”

            Her joke is met with a cold silence. Ayeon sighs, still annoyed and obviously not humored. “Did you come here to make fun of me? I’ll close the door.”

            Yerin rushes for the doorknob and holds it before Ayeon can close the door. “Ah, no, Jimin’s an idiot. She doesn’t know how to break ice.”

            Jimin would be offended, but Ayeon seems very annoyed, so she plays along. “Yeah, stupid of me. Sorry. We’re not here to make fun of you, Unnie.”

            Ayeon laughs to herself, but not in a way that welcomes her guests. It sounds intimidating. “So?”

            “So… what?”

            “Yeah, so what? What did you come for?” The more Ayeon talks, the more her voice raises. Yugyeom instinctively speaks up, in fear Ayeon will end up yelling.

            “Ah, Ayeon Noona… we don’t…” Yugyeom plays with his fingers while searching for the right words, “We don’t know what we did—ah, I mean, we’ve forgotten about last night. As in… we’re sorry for causing you trouble.”

            Yugyeom bows ninety degrees, shoving Bambam’s head downwards as he does. Jimin and Yerin quickly follow suite and bow down to her in apology. Ayeon stares, trying to keep her strict expression, but she quickly loosens up. This mean image doesn’t suit her.

            “I mean, how can I be angry if you act so respectfully to me!” Ayeon yells in annoyance, confused about whether she’s annoyed with herself or with them. “You don’t have to bow down so low to me, I’m overreacting.”

            The 97-liners hesitate, but after a prolonged pause, Ayeon pulls Yerin up to stand upright. She proceeds to do the same to the rest of them. They’re still tense, but seeing Ayeon had loosened up a little, they try and loosen their own expressions.

            “So you came here to apologize? That’s sweet,” Ayeon admits. Another silence follows, and Ayeon notices their eyes are wandering around. They’re trying to find words to say. “Unless… you don’t remember anything? Anything at all?”

            Bambam tilts his head. “Well, blurry figures… is all we can seem to pick up. The Hyungs have told us how we came home… but that’s all.”

            Ayeon pauses, then nods her head slowly. “Ah, so you’ve come to me to find out what happened.”

            Bambam nods. Ayeon smiles a little, and finally gives in to her naturally kind character. “Alright,” she waves them to come inside as she walks into her living room, “Come in, I’ll get you some tea and I’ll explain what I know.”

In the middle of Ayeon’s living room is a short-legged circle table; all five sit on the floor around it. It seems like Ayeon’s rare temper has calmed down, so the girls of 15& know they can drink their tea comfortably. Bambam and Yugyeom are still a little new to that side of Ayeon, so they still drink with precaution. Ayeon places her teacup down on the table, causing the boys to jump a little. Ayeon ignores their twitch.

            “So, what is it exactly you want to know?” she asks calmly. It seems that she’s forgotten that she looks a bit scary with her green mask and hair rollers.

            “Well… everything,” Jimin admits, chuckling, “Until our memories come back to us, we really just want to be told everything.”

            Ayeon tilts her head in thought. “Well… I can’t tell you everything, since I only know about fifty minutes of the night.”

            “Can you tell us at least that? Those fifty minutes?” Yugyeom speaks up.

            Ayeon smiles at the sight. They may be twenty years old and hungover from a game of shots, but in her eyes, they look so innocent. “Of course, here’s my story.”

Pierrot Strike: January 1^st, 2016, 4:10 a.m. (Ayeon’s point of view)

I was hanging out with some friends on New Year’s. I was even on Skype with my parents during the countdown. Overall, I was having a pretty chilled out time for most of the night. There was still this feeling I had that made me worry about you guys—I kind of knew something bad was going to happen. It was a gut feeling. Like, I felt like your mother.

            So when I did get a phone call from Yerin, I knew what was about to go down. I had a feeling that I was gonna have to drive you all home because each of you were a little tipsier than you had hoped to become. I knew it was going to be irritating, but this is what friends to for each other.

            I was almost completely wrong. I did end up driving you all home, but you called me for different reasons.

            Anyway, I picked up, and said, “Hello? Yerin?”

            Yerin sounded drunk, I could smell her breath from over here. “Unnie-ya… I’m wasting my credit to call you, because dummy Jimin ran out of money texting her idiot.”

            I never figured out who her idiot was, but I figured it was the alcohol talking. “Well… are you okay?” I asked.

            “Yes! Perfect!” Yerin pretty much yelled. I couldn’t hear any music in the background, so I assumed you were already out of the pub. “But Unnie, you’re the strongest girl I know. And we need strong arms. To fight.”

            What? Fight?

            That’s when I heard the sound of yelling. The cracking voice in the background suggested Yugyeom was getting in a fight with someone. I freaked out and my instincts made me drive to you guys.

            “Yerin, wait there. Where are you?”

            “Right outside Pierrot Strike. Come, come, you’re so strong~”

            I don’t know why you thought I was so strong all of a sudden, but later I figured out it was because I’m the first number on Jimin’s speed dial. So Yerin made a drunk assumption.

Anyhow, I drove past my usual self-timed speed limit to get to the pub. When I did get there, the first thing I saw was Bambam and Yerin cheerleading on the sidewalk. They were chanting a lot of slurred versions of Fighting!, and I had to fight the urge to laugh out loud.

            The next image I saw were these four men, two of which were sitting down next to Yerin and Bambam, yelling a more sober version of Fighting!, while the other two seemed intoxicated. The two men had their fists out, ready to fight the two figures across from them, which were Jimin and Yugyeom.

            Jimin and Yugyeom were going to fight these big, muscular men? Not under my watch, is what I told myself and I ran out of my car. But really, the closer I ran to that sidewalk, the bigger the men appeared in comparison to little Jimin and little me. Even Yugyeom seemed short.

            I did my best to appear adult-like, despite looking this young. I cleared my throat and blinked a few times to prepare myself, then ultimately interrupted their fight by walking in the middle of the two parties.

            “Excuse me, what is going on?” I did my best to stay calm, but my voice was wavering. I don’t think the men noticed, figuring they were either drunk or watching the fight.

            One of the sober men who was yelling Fighting spoke first. “Yah, little girl, can’t you see there’s something serious going on? Go home to where it’s safe, these four are about to fight.”

            Then Yerin laughed a weird, drunken laugh that really sounded nothing like her. “No, no, Seung Oppa, I invited Unnie to come here. She’s actually a 93-liner.”

            My first question was, why is Yerin calling this tattooed, gangster-like man Oppa? Then it hit me that these four men, half of which had gotten drunk, were the ones you planned on hanging out with on New Year’s. It’s no wonder Yugyeom and Jimin wanted to fight them out of a protective spirit.

            The man, whose name was apparently Seung, then decided to explain what was going on. “93? I was born in 94. Let’s explain this to her. Yah, Noona. Don’t make rash decisions. Here’s what happened.”

            I was getting a bit angry that this 94-liner was speaking to me as if we were friends. He had no sense of formal language with an elder! So I snapped a bit. “Yah, I don’t care how this happened. I just want to bring my friends home safely. And don’t call me Noona if you’re going to speak to me with disrespect.”

            But Seung insisted, so he and the other sober man (who revealed himself to be called Kwang) explained what happened. Basically you four were apparently just leaving the pub, somehow expecting to walk home even though you took cabs there. When the men saw you four, they got pretty mad that you’d gotten them kicked out of the pub. They were planning on letting you go, because they had nothing against Jimin or Bambam (as opposed to Yugyeom and the Yerin who ditched them). Also, half of them got drunk outside the pub so the sober ones just wanted to bring them home. But Yugyeom had gotten mad and started pushing the men, starting a fight. The drunk ones got angry, too, and insisted on a fist fight. Jimin started getting defensive and protective over Yerin and started pushing as well. Yerin and Bambam couldn’t really process what was going on, so they just began to drunkenly cheer them on.

            The sober two seemed to think this was funny, but I was mad. They, these grown men, were willing to start a fight with what used to be minors just a few hours ago? Just as Seung and Kwang finished explaining everything, we heard the sound of punching. Yugyeom had officially begun the fight and started punching one of the drunk men.

I know what you’re thinking—oh, we got into a huge fight and blah, blah, blah… but you’re wrong. The fight ended quite quickly when the drunk man easily pushed Yugyeom into the group of trash bins. It’s a miracle Yugyeom didn’t get bruises or anything, just a cut on his lip.

            That’s when I really got mad and grabbed Yugyeom by the arm and told him we need to go home. At this point, Bambam was ready to leave as well.

            “Come, let’s go now,” Bambam tried to slur his words in a sophisticated way, but it all came out in a very exaggerated Thai accent. Jimin thought this was hilarious and imitated him.

            Now, Bambam may be skinny as a stick and Jimin may be pocket-size, but that doesn’t mean that it was easy to drag them to my car. I tried. Really hard. While Yugyeom was still trying to pick a fight with the drunk half of the men, and Yerin was completely supporting him, Bambam and Jimin were making it really difficult for me to lock them in.

            Eventually Seung and Kwang both got sick of the drunk fight and decided to end it there. They brought their own drunk men home, and Yerin went to “tend” Yugyeom’s lip bruise. I don’t know exactly what she did, because my back was turned trying to shove Bambam into the car. But Yugyeom started screaming in what I assume is either pain or shame—I can’t tell.

            So it took a good ten minutes to get all of you in the car, and I might even be underestimating the amount of time that took. You were all squirming around, I felt like I was eating Sannakji. I put Jimin in shotgun, because she was the quietest drunk, and I trusted her not to mess with the wheel. Bambam was in the middle, and Yerin and Yugyeom were on the sides of the backseats.

            Then Bambam hugged the neck of the shotgun seat that Jimin was sitting in, and said, “Did he text you back?”

            Jimin got extremely offended and just sulked for the rest of the ride. “Why would I need to be texted back? Stupid. I don’t need any pity.”

            Then Bambam exclaimed, “It wasn’t pity!”

            The rest of the ride was pretty quiet, with Yugyeom giggling to himself. And Yerin seemed to be a complete whirlwind of emotions, ranging from angry to happy to quietly deep in thought. None of you seemed like yourselves.

Baek Ayeon’s Apartment: January 1^st, 2016, 3:55 p.m. (Present day)

“So then I dragged you guys into the nearest dorm, being GOT7’s, and I was pretty annoyed at all of you. Especially Yugyeom. And that’s about it. Does that answer your questions?” Ayeon finished her side of the story and picks her cup of tea back to drink the rest of it.

            Just like when Youngjae and Junior had finished off their sides of their stories, the room becomes quiet in thought. The story brings up another set of questions, though not as many as the ones from the story Junior told. It does answer so much more, though. Yugyeom is the first to speak up.

            “Okay… then let’s check which questions that answers before moving on to unanswered questions.”

            Yerin shrugs. “Well, the only question answered is that we know how you got that bruise on your lip. I don’t know how I got mine.” Yerin turns to Ayeon. “Did I have a scar on my lip when you arrived?”

            Ayeon scrunches her eyebrows together and stares at Yerin’s lip. “But Yerin… that’s not a scar.”

            “What?”

            “That looks like a sharp red color stain.” Ayeon her thumb and begins rubbing Yerin’s lip to check if she's right. Sure enough, the more she rubs, the more the red fades from her lip. “Looks like the color would only fade after a rougher rub. What was that, blood?”

            Yerin shudders at the word. “Well, there’s another question… shall we list our questions out again?”

            Yugyeom sighs and begins. “Again, I still don’t know what I meant when I told Jinyoung Hyung ‘I did it, but I don’t know if that’s a good thing’.”

            Yerin continues. “I still don’t know what happened between Mark Oppa and I. And now I know that was a stain on my lip. Where’s that from?”

            Jimin goes on. “My phone’s still out of battery, can I charge it here?” Ayeon nods, and Jimin sighs. “Well, I’ll know who I was texting once my phone turns on properly. But I still wonder what happened with Jackson Oppa.”

            As Jimin walks to the wall to plug in her phone, Bambam finishes off. “Well… who did I kiss, and who wrote on my arm?”

            Ayeon turns to Bambam. “Wrote?”

            “Well yeah, someone wrote ‘It was me’ on my arm.” Bambam shows Ayeon his arm. Ayeon squints and suddenly claps her hands.

           “Yugyeom had a Sharpie in his pocket last night, I know because it fell out when he crashed into the trash cans,” Ayeon nods and explains, and Yugyeom only blushes at the thought of himself getting in a fight.

            “Okay… then why’d he write that?” Bambam asks.

            “That’s something only within the walls of the pub,” Ayeon shrugs and stands to bring the teacups back to the kitchen.

            As Ayeon is gone, the hungover four remain in silence. Jimin waits for her phone to charge a little before turning it on. Yerin touches her lips in hopes of remembering how it got there. Yugyeom lies on the floor, covering his eyes with his arm. Bambam is deep in thought. Pity... pity... it wasn't pity... pity kiss.

            Bambam suddenly gasps and claps a hand over his mouth.

The rest of the group stares his way. “What happened?”

            “Bam, you okay?”

            “Kunpimook?”

            Even Ayeon peeks back into the living room. “Bambam-ah?”

            Bambam only looks at Jimin, at the same time avoiding eye contact. Jimin an eyebrow and crawls to him, leaving her phone behind. She places a hand on Bambam’s shoulder. He immediately pulls himself away from her, as if she gave him an electric shock.

            “Well chill, boy!” Jimin yells, but Bambam still holds his hand in front of his mouth. “Did you remember something?”

            Bambam takes a few more seconds to calm himself, and slowly releases his hand from his mouth. But he still refuses to look Jimin in the eyes. It’s concerning, so Jimin (being the delicate woman she is) roughly pulls Bambam’s chin to face her properly. Yerin, Yugyeom and Ayeon are watching intently.

            “Tell me.”

            It takes a few breathing exercises for Bambam to speak. “Ayeon Noona said that you said… ‘I don’t need any pity’, right?”

            “… Right.”

            “And I responded, ‘It wasn’t pity’, according to her.”

            “Bam, where are you going with this—”

            Bambam doesn’t skip a beat to continue his explanation. “And Youngjae Hyung said that I’d said, ‘I hope you don’t think it was a pity kiss’.”

            There’s a thoughtful silence before Bambam reaches his conclusion. “So what I’m thinking is… if Jimin thought I as pitying her, and I didn’t want her to think that… and I also didn’t want anyone to think it was a pity kiss…”

            Jimin claps a hand over , copying Bambam’s earlier stance. “No.”

            “Yes.”

            The other three in the room are left with hanging mouths. Yerin’s eyes are much wider than she normally allows them to be. “You two…”

            Yugyeom grabs his hair. “You…”

            Ayeon is the least shy, and bursts into the full sentence that nobody wanted to say first. “Bambam and Jimin kissed?!”

            Another absolutely stunned silence follows. Of all the things that could have happened, this is not the first thing any of them would have thought of. What Ayeon and Yerin expect is for Jimin to run out of the room. What Yugyeom expects is that they become horribly awkward around one another. But Jimin and Bambam look each other in the eyes.

            Bambam is the first to make a gagging noise. “Dude! I kissed you?”

            Jimin follows right after and makes a face, her tongue hanging out like she’d tasted something bitter. “Oh my god, that’s—NO!”

            They quickly turn away from each other, then slowly make eye contact again. “No!” they yell in unison. Bambam covers his eyes in embarrassment and rolls on the floor comically, an overdramatic move to show just how much he wouldn't want that to happen. Jimin makes the first move and sits right in front of Bambam on the floor. She laughs uncomfortably and holds out his hand.

            “Okay, we shake on that this means nothing, right?” Jimin insists, almost shoving her hand in Bambam’s.

            But no pushing is required, and Bambam quickly nods his head. “Yes, this means nothing.”

            They shake on it.

Yugyeom stares at them, and Ayeon and Yerin give each other confused eye contact. “That was it?” Yugyeom asks, “You’re just gonna get over it? I could never do that.”

            Jimin ignores Yugyeom when she hears the sound of her phone beeping, implying that it had finally . “Can’t hear you, Gyeom, got more important questions to answer.”

            She slides herself over to the wall of the room to check on her phone. After some tapping and scrolling, she makes her way to her messages. Indeed, it’s just as she’d expected, and feared. Jimin pinches her temples in frustration. The first name in her outbox is, in fact, Jackson Wang.

            “.” Her sudden language takes the others by surprise. “Oh, , no, no, no, no, no.”

            She continues to scroll through the messages. She had sent him countless drunk texts. She can make out what the messages mean, despite her sloppy spelling. ‘Hey, .’ ‘Are you dumb, deaf or blind?’ ‘I liked you, idiot.’ ‘Probably not anymore, but I liked you.’ ‘I’m not feelin’ Youngji.’ ‘Why does she have to be so perfect?’ ‘ it! I’m over you.’ ‘Yeah, let’s be friends.’ ‘Because you ain’t gettin’ any of this.’

            To top it all off, the only response is the little Seen checkmark, implying that Jackson had read all of her messages but refused to respond. Bambam reads over her shoulder. “That’s rough.”

            These messages seem awfully familiar, and Jimin feels herself remembering why she typed them. As she and Bambam read through the messages, little pieces of the night start to come back to them. How the texts started, how they got to that. What relates to them. The before’s and the after’s. The night and how the night became what it became. Everything before they left the pub.

            Bambam stands up. “We should go, I don’t want to inconvenience Noona anymore.”

Truthfully, Bambam just wants to tell the whole story without external ears hearing.

A/N: Well, there it is. Some truths are spilled, excuse any sloppy writing. I only get motivated to write at midnight, so I'll go over and edit in the morning hahaha. Thanks for reading, some more is underway~! (since this was a very ayeon focused chapter, here's some ayeon x 97 line~)