Honest Lies | soojin

Part 4: The Sacrifice

The day was getting warmer everyday. It was nice since there are less rains and less snow. The birds are starting to come out, there are more leaves now on the trees, in fact, everything was perfect. Except for the fact that today was the last day that Mr. President let us decide on our own who we are going to remove from the group. He said on Monday that if we haven't come to a decision until today, which is Friday, he'll decide it for himself.

On the plus side, he also said that since we're now an official line-up for the debut team, we don't have to take the weekly evaluation like everyone else does. We would be trained separately from our sections, and there would be a change in our schedules. If we managed to stomach watching one member leave.

We marched down the hall to the place we dreaded the most right now. The President's Office.

I hold on to Shuhua who glanced at me nervously. I gave her arm a squeeze, reassuring her that everything would be alright.

I remembered my promise to her that we would debut together, even if not in this time, or not in this group. Or even if it takes longer. I would debut with her.

"Come in." The President's authoritative voice called out from the other side of the wooden doors.

Yuqi opened one of the doors and let us in before closing the door behind us.

This is the quietest moment I've ever seen of her. All of us were either sad or nervous right now of what's to come.

"Sir. Before you say anything, please, we're asking you to reconsider your terms. The six of us... all of us have worked so hard for that performance. You can't seriously punish us just because we didn't think that the outfits you gave us would fit our song." Soyeon said. She didn't even sit first and just went straight to the point.

"You don't understand, Ms. Jeon. I commend all your talents and skills. Your teamwork is rather impressive, to say the least. I haven't seen that kind of group in years. What you did, disobeying my order because you believe it would make your stage better, that's brave, I'll give you that. But that's also a sign of insubordination." The President looked at his wristwatch, "I have a meeting today, so I'll cut our talk short. If you're breaking rules at this time in your career, I could only imagine what you would do after tasting the spotlight. After you became known to the world, when you have your own say in things. The administration doesn't like taking risks, and this punishment, this is to show you that you're still under someone's reign. You can't always have what you want. You can't always act like that without asking for permission first."

"And if we do, if we did ask for your permission at that time, would you give it to us?" Yuqi boldly asked.

Oh no, here we go again.

"No. But at least I know you respect me enough to seek my approval." The President leans back on his chair and joined his hands on his stomach. "Now, tell me, who is your pick?"

I was just listening to the conversations the whole time, I didn't know what to say, and I'm afraid that if I do, my words would just be used against us.

"We don't have a name to give you, Sir." Minnie-unnie answered. This girl could be intimidating if she wanted to, "Not to act like stuck-ups, but we'd rather go down altogether as a team."

Those words... And here I was, just thinking about mine and Shuhua's fates. When these girls decided to stay loyal to everyone.

"I was afraid you'd say that. Trust me Ms. Yontararak, we were being generous to pick all five of you. There's a whole lot of students out there willing to take your place in a heartbeat, if I were in your shoes, I wouldn't even think about anyone but myself." Mr. President coldly stated.