FACE THE SHADOW || SVT 14TH MEMBER

𝟬𝟬𝟵

09.

THE TANGIBILITY OF LONELINESS

In which Achlys words her priorities.

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July 30, 2022

COMEBACKS ARE CHAOS — pure, unadulterated chaos.

Everyone, by definition, is all over the place; rare is the day in which all members of SEVENTEEN have the same schedule, without added (or, otherwise, discarded) activities. This lasts for months, both before and after releasing the album. In the former case, there's the mission of creating the rhythm, melodies, lyrics and dances for the songs, along with designing cover art, a market plan, and recording all preliminary videos. In the latter case, they have stages, concerts, and shows in which they have to participate.

So, as the idols that they are, comebacks are stressful and not easy to overtake. They have a whole lot of work but a clear lack of time to rest. This wasn't any different for Achlys, who, as the workaholic that she also is, doesn't doubt to always put all of her effort into comebacks (ultimately, that was what she had become an idol for).

Still, as much as she tries to unify her pre-comeback and post-comeback tasks within a working day, there are things that completely go over her head, against her will.

Sector 17's comeback was most probably the worse of them all for Achlys, mainly because it was scheduled at the same time as the start of her own comeback as a soloist. While she was recording for _World's MV, she was preparing lyrics for her own songs, and so forth. Ultimately, it was a period of time noticeably hectic for her, having to deal with two albums, although she still quite enjoyed her job as an idol.

As time went by, specially before engaging in Seventeen's world tour and pausing her solo project while she was in the US, her days started well before sunrise and ended well after sunset — when she wasn't preparing content, she was practicing.

Don't misunderstand Achlys — the whole group shared a similar situation, sharing must of the schedule and tasks, yet she didn't doubt to fill her leftover hours with added work. It was safe to say that the members didn't see a lot of Achlys those days if it wasn't during strict working hours. It was the perfect recipe for chaos.

The one who noticed her absent nature the most was Junhui.

Sure, she answered all his calls and texts speedily and heartily, and they still saw each other in the dorms at least once every two days and spent time together (it was a smaller quantity than normally, but both of them are idols and understand their work is sometimes like that) but it was easy to see her mind wasn't with him those times, eyes vacant and still set on what she had to do before a close deadline.

Knowing she had more work than the rest of the group those days and that she was making her utmost best to not neglect him, he didn't say anything. Instead, for the duration of the comeback up to the tour, he too invested himself in the work they had (much to Woozi's happiness) and spent just a tad bit more time with Minghao.

Now, that was what made Junhui's feelings public (by 'public' here it means known by him and Achlys). Minghao, smart and a good friend of both of them for years, was quite done by the time a week of promotions was left. He had personally noticed Achlys had been spending an outstanding amount of time working, and he missed spending time with her too, but it hadn't reached the extent of Junhui.

Minghao did like spending time with him, but the amount was just exceeding by the day and he would combust if he heard one more sigh from the older Chinese boy as he stared at the silver bracelet he wore in his left wrist.