Chapter Text
Yunjin’s first mistake happens in april.
It’s late at night and she keeps tossing and turning, the hope to eventually fall asleep having long evaded her, when she has the brilliant idea of wanting to see for herself how bad it truly is. She’s been meaning to check, has known for a while she was bound to cave in at some point;
So tonight it is.
Part of her expects the vile and violent comments and straight up insults she sees post after post, so she swallows past the lump in her throat because she’s been warned, after all. Hit after hit, she pretends it doesn’t hurt, even when the voice in her head reminds her it hurting is the very reason she is putting herself through this. Her eyes remain surprisingly dry, not even the trace of a taunting tear.
But her neck. Her neck is on fire, the heat of shame spreading and licking at her skin and burning her in such a brutal way she wishes someone would drown her in the sea. She would choke and gasp for air and feel the sting of her lungs filling with water, and her last sigh would be of relief.
Yunjin pulls her covers up to her chin and turns to the side before grabbing the closest pillow and dropping it on her head. She leaves just enough space for the light of her phone to still reach her eyes.
Perhaps if she imagines the makeshift cocoon to be waves engulfing her body hard enough, fate will do the rest and allow her the solace of not waking up to see tomorrow.
Each swipe of her treacherous finger on the screen feels like taking a bite out of a poisonous apple, and Yunjin has never been able to resist a treat. She bares her teeth and gnaws and tears through the sting of the poison coating her throat, until she reaches the core.
The sentence sticks out like a sore thumb. She glazes over it a few times.
(Yunjin, it goes without saying, has eyes. The first time the five girls find themselves in the practice room in nothing but sports bra and shorts, she sees it. There is a quality to her. Where her teammates are slender and angular, she is softer.
Soft isn’t a bad thing to be, and Yunjin isn’t a big girl by any means, and both those things she knows. Yunjin also has a dream to achieve, and people to love, and a life to live, so the fleeting thought turns to dust as quickly as it has materialized, because in all honesty, it does not bother her. She doesn’t give it a chance to take root, instead demotes it to what it is; a mere observation.)
Yunjin’s phone powers down with a sound, leaving her to stare at the black screen in her sea of cotton. The screen stares back at her with a matching insistence, adamant on displaying the words even in its rest.
Wide rib cage.
Like she’s sentenced to it. Like her very bones wear her as a suit.
Yunjin isn’t bothered by the accusation in itself as much as she’s upset about it bothering her in the first place. She’s just witnessed an absolute carnage, and it’s like her friends lie slaughtered on the ground while all she can focus on is a scratch of her own, barely deep enough to have breached skin. She doesn’t recognise herself, feels stripped of her identity.
The very next day, Yunjin looks at her bare reflection a second longer than she normally does before turning the shower on. The scratch widens just enough for a seed to pass through and bury itself in the soil of her skin.
-
“Ah unnie, you’re not hungry?” Eunchae’s mouth is so full Yunjin’s stunned she manages to keep it all in as she speaks. Chaewon frowns and reaches to jokingly scold the younger girl.
“Kinda. I feel a little sick but… It’s fine though. I’ll eat when it passes,” Yunjin truthfully replies, making a show out of dramatically rubbing her belly.
Defiant, stubborn Eunchae grabs another spoonful of her kimchi and shoves it in the redhead’s face before twirling it around with insistence. An innocent, caring gesture. While the sick remains, the strong scent of the food coupled up with its proximity taunts Yunjin’s nostrils just long enough for hunger to breach through. The girl can’t ponder too long on the disappointment that flares up as she hears Sakura laughing at the maknae.
“But… Are you casting a spell?”
Eunchae forgets all about Yunjin as the comment makes her turn around at the speed of light towards the prober, the cutlery now accusingly pointed at her other unnie.
Yunjin catches a few weird looks throughout the rest of the dinner, and there’s caution in the way some of the girls glance at her ever unchanging plate every now and then, but not enough for Yunjin not to see the questions etched in them.
Sakura has the decency of waiting to get her alone before briefly checking on her, and although always feeling grateful for her member’s love and care, there is only one thought sloshing around her brain as she assures her unnie she genuinely just feels shitty, hence the lack of hunger.
What does it say about her that all it takes for people to worry is one tiny missed meal?
Yunjin passed on the opportunity to eat? Something must be wrong.
The thought follows her back to her room and under the covers of her bed, latches itself onto her shadow and drips and drips inside the scratch, and under Yunjin’s skin, a seed sprouts.
-
Everyone is caught up in preparations as the clock on the wall of the venue’s makeup room ticks and ticks. Yunjin relishes in the rushed noises and hurried checkups all around her, the solace the girl has learned to find in the backstage chaos like sprinkled water on the hot charcoal that seethes inside her belly whenever she’s about to step on stage.
She had told Sakura once, had told her how the mess and the disarray have a way of soothing her. Her unnie had stared at her in disbelief before adding fondly that Yunjin’s capacity to turn anything bad into something good was truly commendable.
Yunjin puts her phone away and joins her members by the door. The girls’ hands find themselves stacked in the air, and five voices become one as their rallying cry fills the hallway. Chaewon and Kazuha smile at each other. Yunjin squeezes Eunchae’s hand.
“Yunjin-ssi!”
The girl pivots to find the origin of the sound, before her eyes settle on her assigned makeup artist, who’s motioning for her to get there. Yunjin is about to ask why she’s been called back when the woman reaches for her torso without a word, left bare by how short the top from her outfit is for the day’s stage.
The redhead looks down to see steady hands attaching the beaded waist chain responsible for the raising goosebumps on her skin. The clasp closes, the jewel treacherously hugging her form.
“Sorry. Stylist’s assistant forgot this earlier. I had to catch you before the stage, are you okay for mobility?”
Yunjin barely hears her, that is over the ringing settling in her ears, but if there is one thing being an idol has taught her it’s the importance of appearances and how to fake them.
She loops one finger under the metal to test for space before throwing a thumbs up to the staff member who nods in satisfaction and throws a ‘fighting!’ her way. Yunjin stands there a little longer than she needs to, unease crawling down her limbs and washing over the serene state she was in mere moments earlier.
Mobility is the farthest thing in her mind right now.
She tries and tries to move on as the thought that she’s been standing there like she’s been nailed to the ground for a little too long to seem cool and dandy crosses her mind, but it’s like that stupid chain is as tight around the part of her brain in charge of her motor functions as it feels against her midriff.
“Yunjin-ah!”
She doesn’t get it.
Or she does but would rather not.
She’s worn stuff like this so many times before and has never paid attention to it.
It’s that fucking comment she saw, isn’t it?
Yunjin feels naked. She felt naked back then, buried under the sea of her bedsheets, and she feels naked now, as she’s about to step on stage for what feels like the whole world to see. The unease hooking itself onto her comes with a sense of anger. Anger at a stranger for getting to her in the way they have, but mostly anger at herself for being so weak that she would let it happen this easily.
Her forearms come up with a mind of their own to wrap around her figure before she can even fully communicate an intent for it to her brain.
“Unnieee!”
The snap back into reality almost gives her whiplash.
Yunjin mentally scolds herself as she manually walks back to the rest of the members. “Ah sorry, sorry!”
Get over yourself.
You’re making problems up.
And still every step tightens the knot in her chest a little more, and by the time she’s reached the girls again her heart is hammering so violently inside her ribcage she’s afraid it might burst and paint the walls with her insides.
After a few more last minute checkups, they all depart from the makeup room. Yunjin’s managed to get some sort of a hold of herself, silently praying no one will bother her with unwanted questions and her unusually quiet demeanour will be blamed on concentration.
Her hopes get crushed when Chaewon’s eyes catch hers, and suddenly Yunjin feels like she’s already on stage, obnoxious lights pointed right at her face in an accusatory way.
Is it the waist chain? Can Chaewon see the way it’s scalding hot against her friend’s flesh? Did she notice how the material is burying itself into it, unforgiving in the way it showcases just how soft Yunjin is?
Or is she paying it no mind because it’s already a given to her, the way Yunjin looks next to the rest of them? Maybe she doesn’t even see it anymore after all this time.
“You okay?”
The leader has that look on her face, the one that says this is not mandatory, i actually care about the answer, please answer me.
Yunjin’s response comes too quickly, too eager.
“Yes.” She thinks for half a second; “No. I’m just nervous I guess. Sorry.”
The lie rolls off easily. For how bad the girl is at lying in any given circumstance -at her members’ delight given the entertainment they get out of fondly mocking her for it- she has on the other hand always excelled at omitting truths when those would spark any form of concern for her person. Although it’s a half truth, Yunjin figures, so she’s not technically lying.
The chain hugs her tighter, making sure not to let her get away with feeling appalled at how caught up she’s getting about something so insignificant.
“No, why are you sorry?” The two girls keep on walking, trailing a little behind the others. Chaewon pouts a little and then, bless her, is reaching for her friend’s back, rubbing it a few times before softly patting it in an effort to soothe what she believes to be anxiety. “You’re gonna do great! We practiced so hard for this, you’re so ready.”
“Ahhh I know, I know,” Yunjin looks down to intertwine the leader’s fingers with hers and Chaewon’s immediate response is to bring their joint hands to eye level and violently waggle them.
“Fighting Yunjinnie!”
Yunjin looks at her in disbelief before snorting once and laughing along with the small girl, shaking their linked arms even harder.
“Fighting Chaewonnie!”
Before they know it, the three others have joined them and they’re all in a shouting match of encouragements, that is with Sakura chuckling on the side with her small self-cam capturing the ruckus.
She shifts the angle to a close up of her face, fake, over-the-top confusion plastered on it.
“Ah, but seriously, Fearnot…Is this the content you like to see?”
“Yah!”
For a moment, Yunjin forgets about the waist chain.
Much to her contentment, she gets through the stage without her thoughts getting the best of her, and it feels like a small win. She does as well as usual, they all do, maybe even better. They just got off stage and each go straight to recording a very brief segment for the usual backstage content that will be aired at some later point. It all gets wrapped up in a matter of minutes, and soon the members are out of their costumes, and into their regular clothes.
Yunjin makes a point not to look as she finally gets the cursed accessory off of her, quick to slip back into her oversized teeshirt. She could almost sigh from the relief that comes from the familiarity of the coverage.
Eunchae’s the only one who hasn’t changed at this point, whines coming from where she’s sprawled in one of the seats, refusing to move a muscle as Sakura and Chaewon are both trying to convince her to get it over with, that she can rest as soon as she’s out of the stage outfit.
Yunjin joins the bunch and nudges at the maknae.
“Yah, what is this beginner mistake… You know damn well not to sit down or else you’re never getting back up! C’mon lazy pants.”
Eunchae groans as she gives in and lets her unnie pull her up and out the seat.
“What’s lazy pants?” She asks as Yunjin immediately plops down, shamelessly stealing her seat in front of her very eyes.
“You. Lazy maknae.” Yunjin translates as she drops her head towards the ceiling on the seat’s backrest and closes her eyes.
The youngest turns on her heels after throwing a grimace and disappears, her feet dragging on the ground.
“Omo. Eunchae’s butt warmed the cushion perfectly. I feel like i’m sitting on a toast, seriously.”
Yunjin registers a chuckle before she lets herself drift off, lulled by whatever conversation Chaewon and Kazuha are having in the background.
She gets woken up by a soft push to her shoulder.
She groans.
“Huh. Lazy.”
Yunjin cracks one eye open, just enough to see Eunchae’s finger pointed accusingly at her, a shit eating grin plastered on her face.
She snatches the hovering hand, mentally mourning the solace of sleep soon followed by the sudden loss of the heat as the younger girl pulls her up.
Yunjin lets herself rest on Eunchae for a couple of seconds in a sluggish, tired half hug, before softly patting the maknae’s butt and parting ways. She goes to grab her things when Chaewon chimes in. Yunjin’s yawn dies halfway on its way out as she hears the word restaurant. The other girls don’t notice the way she tenses up. If anything, the news are received with audible enthusiasm.
“I’m freaking starving, do we need to wait for manager-nim to go?”
“Give me five minutes!” The guilty party shouts from across the room.
Yunjin goes back to the others as the discussion flows from one growling stomach to another.
“Aaah, samgyopsal sounds so good right now…”
“Anything sounds good right now.”
“Seriously…”
“Manager-nimmm…”
Yunjin shakes off the feelings born from the promise of a heavy meal before they can turn into thoughts. She gives herself a little push, forces words to come out of her mouth and partakes in the conversation like everything’s normal, because everything is normal.
They all make their way into the company van and decide on a place to go to satiate their growing hunger, so soon enough, the girls and some staff are seated around a massive table and looking through the menus. Yunjin’s intestines scream in desperate attempts to get her attention, even as she orders a familiar dish, knowing she can’t go wrong with an acquired taste. Although she’d probably enjoy about anything right now, that is with the way her stomach is so empty that it feels like it’s caving in on itself.
Chaewon’s halfway through the retelling of how Shiro nearly peed on her favourite sneakers when the food arrives and in a matter of seconds, the table is packed.
Eunchae practically inhales her ramen and almost chokes, which earns her a half-assed reprimand from Chaewon and laughs from the other members as well as their manager. Kazuha herself is one bite into her meal when her satisfied gasp turns into a faint squeal as the unexpected spiciness hits her. The atmosphere is light, everyone’s either telling stories or digging into their food enthusiastically.
It would make for a wholesome memory were it not for how unplugged Yunjin currently is from it all. The only thing she can focus on, the only thing that exists right now is how good every single bite is on her tongue. The way the taste fills her mouth from its roof to the back of her throat whenever she chews, how the warmth spreads down her body at every swallow.
She feels so content and satisfied and she can’t recall why she was ever anxious about coming here. Her plate empties and empties as her belly fills and fills, and then the meal is over and they’re going home and Yunjin finds herself gushing about how good the food was.
It’s a timid sentiment, and a silly one at that, but Yunjin feels some sort of relief from the well-spent night with her members. Maybe it really was all a fluke, how worked up she was getting about…Yeah.
A fluke.
A crack in her crafted armour, polished over the few years the girls have had together. She let hate get to her and latch itself onto her shadow, so much so that it followed her to work and everywhere she stepped. She wants to hate herself for it, but she happens to know better and that it’s always good to remind herself that she’s only human, one with penetrable skin and breakable bones. Learning to be okay with that is a forever process, she thinks, but if there is one thing Yunjin was gifted with, it’s resilience.
The girls get dropped of at the hotel and they all say goodnight to their manager and to each other, and then it’s only Yunjin and Chaewon.
They’re in the elevator when the leader links their arms.
“Yunjinnieee, i overdid it…”
She cradles her stomach and Yunjin can’t help but think she looks a little idiotic, so naturally, she’s snorting at the sight.
“Omo, Kim Chaewon, we seriously need to keep you away from soju.”
ding!
The redhead puts both hands on the small girl’s shoulders, slender and defined even under the several layers of clothing, and walks them both out the elevator and forward.
“What is this? I’m barely tipsy, idiot.” Chaewon chuckles halfway through the sentence before putting her own hands over Yunjin’s.
They reach their rooms, doors facing on opposed sides of the hallway, and part ways before Yunjin turns around.
“Wanna come over?”
“Mmmh…” Chaewon passes a hand in her hair. “I’m so tired.”
“No i know, I don’t care, you can sleep. Can I come over then? I’ll be so quiet.”
A pinched smile escapes Chaewon and she extends her hand in a silent invitation. She expects the younger to grab it but it gets slapped loudly instead, and then Yunjin’s telling her she’s gonna get ready for the night and then join her in her room.
Half an hour later, they’re settled on Chaewon’s bed, Chaewon herself cuddled up under the covers while Yunjin’s mindlessly scrolling on her phone. God is the older girl relishing in the simple action of closing her eyes. Sleep has yet to come to her though, surprisingly.
“I missed you at dinner. You don’t sit next to me anymore.”
Yunjin’s eyes leave her phone and she scoffs.
“What’s up with these accusations,” she whines, “You don’t sit next to me either!”
“Mmmh yes…” Chaewon’s eyes are still shut. “But I’m allowed.”
“Huh- Why!”
“Whyyy-” The sleepy girl mocks her and chuckles like she wholeheartedly believes herself to be hilarious. Yunjin goes back to her phone after throwing her best friend a dirty look.
“Didn’t even say you missed me back. Do you w’nt to die?” The words are mumbled and Chaewon’s at her most harmless looking, making for a rather unconvincing threat.
“Yah unnie, I thought you were tired.”
“Mmh.” A pause. “But y’had fun tonight?”
Yunjin wonders why Chaewon asks.
“Yeah.”
“Cool. Yah Y’nj’nnie?”
“Mh?”
No response comes.
Yunjin smiles to herself and goes back to scrolling, hoping to tire herself out and soon follow up.
But with the silence and the dark, room is born for the heaviness in her stomach to make itself known. It doesn’t ask for permission. Yunjin loses her footing, or rather gets knocked over. Her brain yields and acknowledges the feeling of being full, just one fleeting second, and then the noise is back. Just like that.
Yunjin exhales and rolls over. What the fuck is her deal? Her ever growing frustration aimed at no one but herself makes her see red. She puts her phone down and tilts her head towards a sleeping Chaewon, and does the first thing that comes to her as a safety hook. The redhead focuses all she has on mentally tracing the ridge of her friend’s nose and the swell of her cheeks, down to the plump curves of her lips.
Everyone had eaten without restraint tonight, her teammates included. Some probably more than her. And yet she’s stuck on the unease embalming her for daring to indulge as well, like she’s faulty for having done what everyone else did, for thinking she’d earned the right to. And then suddenly she feels gross for even looking in the direction of the girl lightly snoring by her side, so her neck snaps back towards the ceiling.
Wide.
Wide, wide, wide.
Was she?
She knows she’s not.
But would she be feeling this way if she wasn’t, to some extent?
Surely no one would ever think to use this word to describe the rest of the-
Stop.
Yunjin scrunches her eyes and passes a tense hand on her face, tiredly rubbing at her skin. It feels slippery, what she’s doing. She’s over the mental gymnastics, she just needs to get rid of it. Get rid of whatever is sprouting, stomp on it until… Until it’s good enough.
She’d find some free time for an added workout tomorrow, to repent for tonight, if that was what her body was so desperately trying to ask of her.
To purge herself of the ghost of that comment once and for all.
Yunjin missteps and the roots take, hungrily burying themselves inside her muscles.