Find the light to face someday / purinz

Hiatus

When Chaewon comes out of the doctors office it's with the diagnosis anxiety, depression, stress and a recommendation to a therapist. She doesn't have enough time to let it sink in as her manager is already rushing her to get into the car.

It's only two days later when the company puts out a notice: " Le sserafim's leader Kim Chaewon to go on temporary hiatus due to health issues"

Chaewon registers the fact that the public found out about this before her family did and she sends a mental apology to them, guilt eating away at her. She doesn't read any of her countless unopened texts though, not from her close friends and not even the ones from her worried mother, and hopes that they don't take it to heart. The thing is, she's not ready to give any explanations and talk about her hiatus yet. How could she, when she hasn't really realized it herself yet?

It's not like anyone actually gave her the chance to process this (her own issue and future, mind you) on her own. One moment she's getting ready for her schedules and the next moment she's suddenly told that she won't attend any of her schedules any time soon and everything she prepared so hard for has gone to waste. The sudden change of schedule is disorienting to say the least.

There's always an ache to do something , and it feels as if there's something wrong if she rests for more than a single moment. The girl got used to the hectic life of being an idol and suddenly not having the pressure to always be busy makes her feel like she's slacking off. Chaewon is practically waiting for one of her dance teachers to suddenly appear out of nowhere and scold her for not perfecting the dance moves they've been working on.

She wishes to be able to get back to her schedule, even if it's physically demanding and stressful. She's not allowed to do stressful things for a while though, according to the people around her that act like they know her so well. Really, it's like she's not allowed to have her own thoughts and opinions about this whole situation.

Most of all Chaewon just feels lonely: it's a ugly feeling deep down her heart, slowly spreading to the rest of her body, that she has tried to push down but now has to confront all of a sudden. Being around her members all the time might be annoying at times when she would rather have some time to herself or a moment to be able to just exist in peace and silence but now that she's on her own in the empty dorm and actually able to experience the silence she has been wishing for it feels weird, as if parts of her left her and it leaves her feeling kind of empty.

Then there's therapy: her manager picks her up once a week and she knows that she can't refuse if she doesn't want to piss off the higher ups any more and make them terminate her contract and kick her out or something equally terrible. Chaewon has to sit in front of her new therapist for an hour, watching warily as the woman tries to build trust and make her talk about her issues. Chaewon is never rude or straight up refusing to talk but she's not open either and she knows that her therapist can tell.

The thing is: this isn't Chaewon's first time going to therapy. She used to have a therapist – a nice middle aged lady that would sympathize with her struggles but never sugarcoat anything – right after her first debut and it was actually helping her for a while. After a couple of months her schedule got even more packed and her company decided that therapy wasn't a priority for Chaewon ("your mental health isn't as important as the money we'll get out of you, so go back to overworking yourself" they didn't say but that wasn't necessary as Chaewon got the message anyway), so she accepted that and canceled any future therapy appointments.

Now she doesn't see why she needs to get help all of a sudden. As long as she's physically fine there's no need for her to get put on hiatus: she has been having mental health problems for so long that it feels natural to her now. Besides, she's an idol, for fucks sake — what idol is completely healthy these days? Whatever, no one is listening to her anyway so why bother trying to make others listen to her and hear her out? She can be sulky about it all she wants but it's not going to help her return from her hiatus in any way.