Chasm.| Seo Changbin

Nineteen.

When hell broke the night of the concert in LA and all of Stella's schedule got canceled or postponed, she stayed there with her brother. She needed time to absorb the situation she was in. And with the new info Felix provided about Hajoon, she found herself running from literally everything. But she couldn't run for long. 

Coming back home a month after the concert, she had nothing to do except stay in her house. Her concerts, shows, commercials, interviews, and all of her work were on hold until she ended the war with her company. An official lawsuit was opened because of how she breached the contract and caused huge losses to her company because of the canceled and postponed shows.

Bitna would come and go but she wasn't staying permanently as she used to do before since Stella didn't need much help. She had all the time she needed. Hajoon kept contact and he would occasionally drop by her house to bring her groceries and food that she never asked him to bring. She tried to distance herself from him and he surely noticed that and that's why he had been pushing in more and more.

Her boring days had nothing since she came back from LA. She would get up, eat something, work on some songs in her soundproof studio, maybe exercise, and when she's pretty bored, she would go out for a walk or something in the neighborhood. Stella never had close friends to hang out with in times like this. She didn't have time to form friendships or relationships since she was a trainee, so without Hajoon, Bitna, or Changbin around, she had to keep herself entertained. 

Since her training days, Stella got the attention of the public because of her beauty and different talents in singing, dancing, songwriting, composing, and even acting. She was an allrounder and that made her hell busy from the moment she made her debut as a soloist. And to ensure she was focusing completely on her career, the company banned her from any relationship for damn seven years! It's not like she had ever had feelings for anyone, not even a crush, but still, it didn't sound reasonable to her.

When she started fighting with her company after the concert cancellation, she went back to the contracts for the first time in many years. When she finally had some free time, she went back to all the injustice she faced but never noticed because she was very busy to notice she was treated badly. She remembered every single fight they had whenever she bought herself an asset like her house, car, or any personal valuable possession. Back then, she didn't understand why but now she knows. They didn't want her to have her own stuff so they could keep her and her money monitored.

She remembered they wanted her to get plastic surgeries to remove the scars from the accident she had with her biological family when she was a little kid. Stella didn't want to remove them. She didn't hate them and they reminded her she was a survivor who made it that far after facing death. She remembered when they didn't allow her to dress the way she wanted to some film festival cause the outfit would reveal her ugly scars and how they would have to edit and photoshop all the photos later. She remembered how they wanted her to use her tragic backstory for some more exposure and compassion with her fans and the whole industry.

Her company was using her for years and she didn't even notice that!

Her fans were controlling her for years and she didn't even notice that!

Her staff and her close-by people weren't as sincere to her as she thought!

Her life suddenly started to seem fake. She suddenly started to feel fake!

Nothing of what she was showing was her true self.

That was all ran through her head as she had a walk around the neighborhood. She huffed once she stood facing the gate of her house. Lately, she was feeling stuffy and lonely in her own place. And since Bitna wasn't around much, Stella kept missing and losing her stuff around the house, and that made her frustrated even more. She used to love how the house was big, but now she wasn't.