4.1.2

130 5 0
                                    

Sohee re-enters the room and my head shoots up to see her

Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.

Sohee re-enters the room and my head shoots up to see her.

"Is everything alright?" Jacob asks and she gives him a nod.

Even if she nodded, she still seems out of it, like there's something still wrong.

"Hyunjae, let's start," Sohee says, and it's as though she's trying to hide the feelings in her.

Her voice feels forced and unnatural, but Hyunjae goes with it anyways. Everybody else does. We know what to do when Sohee's like this. We give her some time to think things through, and that means just going along and not addressing the elephant in the room.

⊱ ────── {⋅. ♪ .⋅} ────── ⊰

Time passes by and we're finally done recording Monster.

"And... that's a wrap for Monster," Sohee says, saving the vocal files. "I'll polish it up and then, share it with y'all. For Spark team, I'll see y'all tmr for the recording too," she says and we nod.

The other members say gather their things and say their 'thanks' and 'thank you's to Sohee before leaving the studio. I made it deliberate that I packed slowly.

"Is everything alright?" I ask, similar to Jacob.

I stare at the girl, pulling a chair so that I can sit beside her. Her eyes meet mine, and I see the glaze over them. They're shining, not from admiration, but from tears she's forced to not fall.

"No. No, it's not," she states, not being able to keep her emotions bottled up anymore.

The tears flood down her cheeks like a dam broke. I pulled her closer to me so that she can cry into my shoulder and she does - I let her. When she's done, she pulls away to wipe her cheeks with her hoodie sleeve.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Everything! Everything's so stressful now, I can't manage it all," she cries out, trying to stop more tears from falling.

"Would you like to elaborate?" I ask.

"Brian called earlier because Jae had a panic attack earlier, that's why I stopped recording for a while," she stated. "Then in school, because Stray Kids is competing in Kingdom, prof has Raeyeon as a moderator and it honestly, doesn't looking too good for my GPA," she continues, hands failing everywhere as she gestures. "And then-" she cuts herself off

"And then what?" I ask, prompting her to carry on.

"Forget about that last part. You don't need to worry about that," she rephrases and I take it with a pinch of salt.

There's something she's not telling me and it's because she doesn't want to.

"Sunwoo, do you think I've been a bad sister lately?" she asks out of the blue.

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"I've been so busy with work and school, that I don't even have time to take care of Jae. Then, when Jae actually gets into something like a panic attack, I'm never there for him," Sohee blurts out rantingly.

"What do you mean 'you're never there for him'. You picked up the phone earlier, and I'm pretty sure helping your brother to calm down over the phone is being there for him," I stated.

"But, I'm not there physically," she points out.

"Sohee, you know you can't be at two places at once," I say and she's silent - beside the quiet sobs.

I pull the girl into another hug, stroking the back of her head softly.

"Sohee, you're an amazing sister. You take care of Jae so much and I just know he appreciates you a lot. I mean- I would if Sunyoung treated me like how you treat Jae," I comfort. "And hey, Jae's a grown man. He knows how to take care of himself. You can just be there as his safety net," I continue and I can feel Sohee calm down.

She pulls back and I wipe the tears from her cheeks away with my sleeve.

"As for Kingdom, I think I can speak for all the members that we will do our best for our performances. We will make sure we continued to rise to the top, even if we have some slip ups," I continue to comfort her and she nods in acknowledgement.

She gulps down a ball of saliva before breathing in another big whiff of oxygen.

"Jah," I sigh out. "Don't cry anymore, alright? We'll get through this together, okay?" I encourage, holding Sohee's hands in mine.

She grips my hand back before pulling my towards her so that she can hug me again. She wasn't crying this time. It was more of a thank you hug.

"Stay here, with me... for a while," she says breathily as she tries to calm down her hiccups.

"I will stay with you how ever long you want," I say, hugging her back. "And even then, I will still be with you forever."

She hugs me tighter and I let out a small sigh of relief.

Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
the girl behind the music: beginnings and endingsWhere stories live. Discover now