1 and 24 - A tripleS story ❀

Chapter 7

– You know, she was almost an idol.

– An... an idol?

It was a strange feeling. It was a strange, unpleasant feeling, that tasted like paint and plastic, but Seoyeon liked it. It didn't feel good, but she was happy. She tucked her hair behind her ears, pulling the green cap lower on her face, and repeated, hesitant: – You said... almost an idol? Does that mean, –, she murmured, wondering why that voice didn't sound like hers, – that now she isn't?

The middle-school girl was staring at her, and in her eyes, clear like a mirror, Seoyeon saw her own emotions on a canvas – paint and plastic, and a small bud, dark yellow like a picture of the past, had been taped at the bottom, left there to dry out – and up and around it, suspended uprooted, an entire tree, as big as an empty castle, had been drawn and built, mocking it had grown from it.

– Yeah, –, the middle-school girl replied in a toneless voice: – right now, she isn't.

A new flower bloomed on the plastic tree's crown. – Oh... –, Seoyeon swallowed the bitter, unpleasant taste that wouldn't go away and said, uncomfortably relieved: – I- I'm... glad... –. She looked down: – I'm gla-

The middle-school grabbed her hand, surprising her, and forced her own two eyes level with Seoyeon's again, so that her words stuck in her throat, unable to finish what she was saying. The middle-school tilted her head to the side, curious, and asked: – Why?

They had been standing and waiting still under the noon sun for a few minutes now, in the middle of the festival crowd, but, despite all the people and the voices and the noise around them that kept coming and going like blood flow and that made Seoyeon feel dazed and confused, the middle-school girl's question struck her with the quietness of a single drop of water falling inside a dead calm lake.

Why?

Why, does the ice explain to the lake why it froze its surface, so that it can shelter it from the seasons and carry the weight of the winter all on its own, allowing the life under it not to wither?

A sudden, frightening, cold wind blew past them, a hundred meters above the ground. The middle-school girl closed her eyes, surprised, and winced – her hair fluttered around, covering her face, and Seoyeon quivered, scared. She looked at the clouds, and covered her friend's face with her hand – with the wind they were, on the edge of her skyscraper's rooftop, and Seoyeon knew she had brought the middle-school girl with her. T- take her down!, she shouted, incensed, to whoever she knew was there listening: She has nothing to do wi- – but, before she could finish or that whoever could reply, the middle-school girl opened her eyes back up, and, with a little smile, they were already back the ground.

– If you ask me –, she said, nodding up and down with her eyes closed, – I think she's amazing.

Seoyeon blinked twice, and that dangerous wind howled over the lake in the unfrozen spring one more time before flying away into the distance. The little waves it had starred on the water's surface quickly disappeared, setting the lake's surface dead calm again, and again it was only the two of them there.

– W- who? –, Seoyeon asked, hesitant.

The middle-school girl tilted her head, smiling again: – Yooyeon Unnie.

– Yoo-

A fuzzy, tender feeling softened Seoyeon like a warm, night bath in the middle of the winter. The world around her spun, and memories flocked to her like pollen falling from a tree.

They used to talk with each other a lot, especially in the beginning. They talked about so many things – their worries, their problems, the others'. And also, about what it meant, to be an idol, and how much it mattered to both of them, and to all the other girls too. How hard it was, to walk that path, but how beautiful it was, too, and how important it was for the two of them to always find the right spot to step on waking, so that all the others could follow safely.