Honest Lies | soojin

Part 7: Is This the End?

If we've tried to collect all our tears when we heard the bad news, I'm pretty sure we could fill an entire swimming pool. Or maybe I'm just exaggerating. I don't know, and honestly? I don't care anymore.

It was our final day with Shuhua. I still haven't talked to her and she wouldn't talk to me either. It was the worst week of my life.

All the simple things we used to do together feels so boring to do alone now. How can I survive the following years without her then?

We barely stayed in our dorm the past few days because we're required to attend the practice for our debut song and lots of pictorials. There's nothing we could do to refuse because we're still students of the school and have no rights to argue.

Shuhua intentionally wakes up a little too late just so she could avoid seeing us in the morning. It pains her, I could tell. It pains her to see us continuing on this path we originally constructed together. It pains her to be suddenly left alone with no other way to get back to us. It pains me too.

"Should we send off Shuhua to the airport tomorrow?" Miyeon-unnie asked while we're taking a break from dance practice.

"Wouldn't that be more painful for all of us? And I would definitely cry, I'm telling you. But I don't think Shu would want to see that." Minnie-unnie answered.

Yuqi has been silent all morning, which is more depressing for the group. She still probably couldn't accept the fact that she'll lose her non-blood-related-sister.

When I looked over to Soyeon, her eyes were filled with a lot of thoughts, more so than usual.

Because I couldn't bear to cry in front of the girls, I decided to talk to the most level-headed person in this room.

Soyeon didn't say a word while I sat down beside her, our backs leaning on the mirror wall.

"Hey."

"You probably wouldn't believe this but I tried, you know?" She looked at me straight in the eyes.

"You tried what?"

"I tried talking to the Director and the President about it. I told them all the reasons why we needed Shuhua in the group, but still they refused to do anything."

Realization came over to me at that time, "Is that why you're always missing during practice? You've been having these secret meetings with them?"

"Yeah, but don't tell the others. I don't want them to know how powerless I really am contrary to their beliefs."

I took a deep breath, "You did everything you could, Soyeon-ah. Thank you for trying."

"They said they wanted to see me later. I think they wanted to talk about our debut concept and stuff."

"What's there to talk about? I thought everything was finalized?"

"I don't know, they wouldn't tell me anything. It's actually frustrating."

"That's new. Usually, you're the first person they tell everything about. What change?"

"Maybe all the times I tried to argue Shuhua's case?" Soyeon laughed bitterly, "It doesn't matter whether they left me out, I still stand by my choice to fight for this group."