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Yongsun was startled awake.
In her eyes, she still felt an impression of lightning so bright it got to her brain, even through her closed eyelids and the drawn heavy curtains of her hotel room.
Sure enough, she only had a couple of seconds to brace herself, and then came thunder.
Thunder so violent, that Yongsun had to take a deep breath and remind herself that she’s a grown woman — one that had been warned that a tornado was in the books for tonight.
She got up and walked through the unfamiliar room.
Peering through the glass pane of the hotel room window, a scene of chaos unfolded. Now, Yongsun understood why Chicago is nicknamed “The Windy City”.
The sky was a maelstrom of dark clouds, twisting and twirling with unrelenting ferocity. The wind roared like a freight train, tossing debris through the air with wild abandon. Rain poured down in torrents, blurring the world outside into a watery haze.
Yongsun only vaguely remembered experiencing weather like this in Seoul once, when she was a kid. This, the hotel personnel had told them while warning Mamamoo and their staff about the alert, was just a run-of-the-mill tornado. Nothing special, nothing to worry about. These Americans truly live life on the edge, Yongsun thought. If this is nothing special, I don’t want to know what the real thing is like.
From the safety of her hotel room, the raw power and force of the elements were both mesmerizing and terrifying, a show of the might that this foreign, north American nature could unleash.
A sharp pang of homesickness shot through Yongsun. She might have dwelled on it, had it not been for the sudden frantic knocking on her door.
She smiled to herself as she went to open it, a pretty good idea of who might be on the other side already forming in her mind.
She wasn’t disappointed. Hyejin stood there, with her hair in a bun, a suggestive satin camisole, Homer Simpson pj bottoms, and an expression on her face that Yongsun knew very well. One that told Yongsun that her maknae’s tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth.
“Jinnie?”, the leader said, gently. “Are you scared?”
The maknae shook her head vehemently, denying, and yet not speaking a word.
Just at that moment, the sound of thunder boomed once again, seemingly shaking the very foundation of the building.
Hyejin flew into Yongsun’s arms.
Yongsun smiled to herself, cradling the maknae’s head for a short moment before trying to detach herself. “You’re not frightened of the storm, are you? They told us it was coming.”
But Hyejin wouldn’t let her go, holding onto the leader’s waist. She buried her head in Yongsun’s hair, seeking protection from the loud noises coming from outside.
Yongsun sighed. “You just stay right here with me,” she murmured, trying to reassure the youngest, then channeling all of her hard-earned muscle strength to carry Hyejin to the bed. She moaned in fake effort, and Hyejin’s chuckles caused a fond smile to appear on the leader’s lips.
“Where are the others?”
“They’re asleep, I think?”, Hyejin finally spoke. “They’re not scared,” she then added in a whisper.
She wasn’t even finished speaking when loud thunder erupted again, almost drowning the noise of someone else frantically knocking on Yongsun’s door. Hyejin burrowed into Yongsun’s neck, and Yongsun let her be, but only for a few seconds — she knew she had another kid to think about, after all.
“Let me go open the door for a sec,” she whispered.
Hyejin reluctantly loosened her grip on the leader’s waist.
Yongsun opened the door, and there she was — a frowning Wheein, all of her facial muscles contracted in a pained, unsettled look.
“See?”, Yongsun smiled at Hyejin, then closed the door behind her second youngest, a hand on her shoulder gently guiding her inside. “Alright, Wheein-ah, up there on the bed.”
“Really?”, Wheein asked incredulously, knowing very well that her leader usually allowed no one in her bed, except maybe, occasionally, a freshly showered Byulyi.
“Well, just this once.”
Wheein settled next to Hyejin on the fluffy comforter. The maknaes looked at Yongsun expectantly, wondering why the leader was still standing by the slightly ajar door.
“Now all we have to do is wait for Byulyi,” Yongsun explained with a confident smile.
“You won’t see her,” Wheein replied resolutely. “Byulyi’s brave.”
Yongsun was about to laugh at Wheein’s innocent words, when thunder boomed again in the sky, so loud that Yongsun’s ears rang for a moment, and the maknaes held each other on the bed, Hyejin’s arms protecting Wheein’s head and ears even as she shook like a leaf herself.
The door flew open, almost knocking Yongsun over, and a very out-of-breath, very clearly terrified Byulyi appeared.
But when she saw the maknaes on Yongsun’s bed, Byulyi’s expression instantly morphed into a stoic one.
“You weren’t scared too, were you?”, Yongsun teased her.
“Oh, no,” Byulyi replied, trying and failing to control the shakiness in her voice. “I just wanted to make sure that you weren’t.”
Yongsun nodded, her nostrils widening in an attempt to suppress a laugh. “That’s very thoughtful of you, Byulie.”
The leader and the rapper joined the maknaes on the bed. Yongsun slipped under the comforter, gesturing for her members to come closer. Byulyi and Hyejin obeyed, snuggling one side of Yongsun each, while Wheein remained at the foot of the bed.
“This is nothing like the storms we get back home,” Byulyi whispered.
The sky showed its way of agreeing with her with intense flashes of lightning cutting through, casting eerie, neon-like light upon the four women’s faces. The hotel windows rattled and trembled under the relentless assault of the tempest. Thunder erupted once again in a series of powerful explosions, and the whole loser crew couldn’t help but double down in fear.
“Why does the thunder get so angry?” Hyejin asked, dejected, when the thunder finally quieted down. “It makes me want to cry.”
Yongsun’s arm went around the maknae’s shoulders, holding her close. She took a few seconds to observe the frightened, upset looks on her member’s faces. Then, she had an idea.
“Hey, girls,” she called, attracting her members’ attention. “You know,” she started, with a mysterious smile, “when anything bothers me, and I’m feeling unhappy, I just try and think of nice things.”
Byulyi, Wheein and Hyejin all returned the smile, their eyes lighting up, recognizing the start of an old ritual.
It was a ritual they hadn’t needed in a long time, and yet it was still fresh in their minds from how often they used to enact it, when they were just young, penniless trainees in a small rooftop apartment, with nothing to rely on but each other and their dreams.
“What kind of things?”, they asked their leader in unison, a practiced question reemerging from their memories. Hyejin finally gave up and let the single tear she had been restraining roll down her cheek. Yongsun and Byulyi shared a fond smile that spoke about their love for the kids, each other, and all of their shared memories. Finally, Wheein rolled her eyes at how cheesy her members were being, but she was smiling, too.
“Well, let me see,” Yongsun continued patiently, as she had done many times, many years before, on many a hard day of backbreaking work, painful sacrifices, strict diets, and anxieties about their future. “Nice things, like… tteokbokki! ... singing! ... Ru Paul’s Drag Race!”
Yongsun’s members laughed even as yet another thunder made itself heard in the sky, only Hyejin still clinging to her leader’s side, uncertain.
“You try, Jinnie,” Yongsun encouraged her. “What things do you like?”
“Leslie Cheung,” Hyejin murmured with a small smile, and was immediately shoved by Wheein and met by a chorus of “IC!”.
“What else?”, Yongsun laughed.
“Gopchang,” Hyejin sighed, her voice trembling as thunder rumbled ominously. “Gejang. Gim-bugak,” she continued bravely.
“Good!” Yongsun clapped.
“KIMCHI!”, Byulyi yelled, carried away by Hyejin’s food fantasies and having one of her own. “Tanghulu!”
“Going out to drink,” Wheein intervened with a knowing smile. “Better than eating,” she reasoned, earning a side eye from Hyejin, and approval from Byulyi, who clinked an imaginary glass against Wheein’s arm.
“What else, Wheein-ah?”, Yongsun encouraged.
“Mmh… Ggomo!”
“DOGS!”, Yongsun and Byulyi exclaimed at the same time. Byulyi started barking, drowning out the noise of the storm, making her members laugh.
“Shhhh,” Yongsun quieted her, holding her belly, with tears in her eyes. “What’s the guest next room gonna think?”
“Chicken,” Hyejin said quietly, a little spaced out, still thinking about food. Everyone doubled down in laughter again.
“Dancing,” someone said.
“Money!”
“Tattoos!”
“BoA!”
“Painting!”
“Thom Browne suits!”
“MooMoos,” Yongsun said finally, earning a general nod of approval. “Mamamoo,” she continued, seriously. “You,” she hugged Hyejin close. “You,” she faced Wheein, stretching her arm out so she could climb on top of her and join the hug.
“And you,” Yongsun murmured, looking at her own hands. She didn’t meet Byulyi’s eyes, but the rapper’s head landed immediately on her shoulder, and the leader rested her cheek on top of it.
Nature's symphony still played a discordant tune outside, heavy and ominous dark clouds swirling and churning with unnatural energy, the wind fierce and relentless, whipping on the hotel windows. The tornado was still unleashing its fury on the city, but the atmosphere inside the hotel room was serene — as serene as the heartbeats of its occupants against each other’s skin.
The maknaes were the first to fall asleep.
Hyejin succumbed to Yongsun’s soothing caresses on her arm, mouth slightly open against the leader’s pj shirt, dreaming of gopchang and jazz music and holidays in Bali.
Wheein closed her eyes as she curled up and laid her head on Yongsun’s lap, her hand in Hyejin’s, not really knowing which unnie was stroking her hair but letting it lull her into sleep regardless.
From the rhythm of Byulyi’s breathing, Yongsun could tell that the rapper was still awake, even though her eyes had fluttered close a while ago. “You alright?,” Yongsun whispered sleepily after a few minutes. “Are you still scared?”
Byulyi shook her head slowly, without opening her eyes. “Nuh-huh,” she whispered back. “Are you?”
“A little,” Yongsun was finally free to confess, checking that the maknaes were still sleeping.
Byulyi scooted closer. “Nothing can hurt us when we’re together.”
Yongsun nodded, leaning into Byulyi. They stayed silent for a while longer, listening to each other's breathing, and the sound of the elements still raging outside, until they, too, fell asleep.
When Yongsun opened her eyes, the first sun of the morning was casting its golden rays over the Chicago skyline, in a sky that was making a cautious promise to be less troublesome today. The electricity crackling in the charged atmosphere the night before had almost completely dissipated, and the air only felt charged with anticipation for a day of rehearsals and sound checks, before yet another awesome concert.
Yongsun extracted herself from the jumbled mess of her members’ arms and legs, trying her hardest to get out of bed without waking anyone, grabbing her phone from her night table.
Before closing the door to the bathroom behind her, Yongsun looked back at the three peacefully sleeping forms. She opened her camera app, and took a quick picture, for future reference.
“When I’m feeling sad,” she murmured to herself, “I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don’t feel so bad.”