kille come, come | purinz

'bed'

i. my dreaming is hopeless
"I can't see you anymore."

Yunjin stood in the alleyway between Chaewon's agency and the next, breath gripping tightly in the air. Her face slowly crumbled. "What do you mean?"

Chaewon's fading auburn hair stuck to her cheeks, eyes flitting against the cracked floor. Distantly she heard the sound of her group members laughing in one of the practice rooms. Her heart clenched.

She looked at Yunjin, fingers tightly clenching the ends of her shirt. "I just... can't. I can't."

She wanted to understand. Desperately so. They'd been in the same show together, just not the same group. Right person, wrong time. She remembered her friends back in the States, always moping over their crushes, whittling away that saying until it was nothing but bare bones to grasp on.

Breathing in deeply, her eyes drifted upwards to the cloudy sky. "Please."

"I'm sorry, Yunjin-ah."

It wasn't official between them. She'd been eliminated, and seeing each other got harder and harder. They'd kissed a few times between shaded hallways and streets, at night out of the way. Out of sight, out of mind.

Yunjin's bottom lip trembled, inches away from her words overflowing from her chest, a dam exploding forward. She fisted her hands until the sting of her nails ebbed the pulsing anxiety in her mind away.

"It's okay." Yunjin managed, lips moving in that familiar pattern she'd forced herself to learn.

Chaewon would debut, and leave her behind. Then what? She'd left everyone behind to try and debut with her, and now she was back to being some nameless trainee whittling away for hours and hours to achieve something.

She felt a fleck of snow against her cheek and looked up, watching the first few fall.

"They say our comeback did really well," Chaewon said slowly, palms of her hands messily wiping away snow like it was her own tears. "And the next one's going to be even bigger and... they might extend our contract. I hope they do."

"Oh." She kept her eyes off her shorter figure, heart too sore in her chest to even think of that. "That's great. I'm happy for you."

"You're not mad at me?" Chaewon's voice softened.

Reluctantly, she met those same brown eyes she'd become familiar with and resented in the same thought. "No. I'm not. You're busy now. I get it. You're doing well."

"I'll miss you." She said again, lips and tongue gouging the open wound in her heart wider and wider, until she had spilt everything and felt hollow. It wasn't Chaewon's fault, they were both young. Stupid and young. Busy and stupid and young and cruel to each other when the world couldn't see what it was like.

And yet.

"It's funny." Yunjin sighed, the words feeling fake in her mouth, like chewing on cotton. "I care so much, and yet I can't remember if you've ever even liked me at all."

♡︎.ᐟજ⁀➴

ii. out of luck
Yunjin stared at her laptop screen.

Her dormmate near her was asleep and had been for hours. The hour wasn't late but she wasn't the only one feeling every ache and tear that reached through her body.

Instead of sleeping, she was watching the live stream unfold in front of her.

Her eyes focused on Chaewon, teary eyes glistening brightly underneath the stage lights. Hair cupping her cheeks and shoulders, hugging her despite the racking sobs she could see she was trying to hold on.