Bulletproof girl scouts

This was only gonna hurt

Nara's POV

Debby thought it would be best if I took a day off from everything. I had an apartment in Seoul. Unused since the last time I needed a getaway. When she dropped me home the next day, there was a box wrapped in silk on the dining table. Attached with it was a note addressed to Fa Fengh. Mrs.Jung was going to be disappointed when she found out that the oldest member had been off the matrimony market since she was six years old. Aoi came running into the living room.
"Unnie~"

Here comes the guilt.

During my time of isolation I had decided it best to retire from idol life. I could not keep up with faking happy emotions. She came up from behind and jumped onto my back, anchoring her arms around my neck. I was used to this sort of welcome.

"Are you okay, now? You're not sick anymore?"

Typical of Lizzy to provide immaculate cover-up stories. This little angel will believe anything anyone says. And to think, I was leaving soon. It would break her little believing heart.

"I'm okay now, princess", I said and she dropped off my back. Taking a good look, she looked like she had just woken up. Tornado hair, droopy eyes and her chimmy pyjamas.

I plopped down on the couch,"I was just exhausted"

Aoi put her head in my lap. As a matter of pure habit, I started to run my fingers through her hair. 
"I just wanted to be left alone for a while"

"But you have us, right unnie?"

I stiffened under her weight.

"We will always be with you"

Every word a prick in my conscious. Tangible guilt, spreading through my veins like quick poison.

"So, I think", she yawned, "As long as you're not going anywhere..."

Shame.

"...we will always have each other to lean on"

Burning shame. Within moments, I would lose all sense of being. Who? What?
Panic rose within me as my eyes blew wide and my breath came in rugged huffs. On top of the girl's head, my hand trembled and shook. Like a dam filled to capacity, panic was slowly spilling over the first symptoms of my condition.

'Take deep breaths'

The therapist's voice was a beacon in a storm.

'Focus on familiar things. Things that make you happy. Things of routine, or perhaps of memory – like a framed picture. I highly recommend keeping with you at all times, an object of significance to you, seeing how you refuse to be around a confidant. To every such patient I always recommend a confidant. You don't understand, dearie, but someone who understands you can always know how to evade or –god forbid- help you out of an attack'

My eyes darted around the room. No one else was present. The only person who framed photographs was Lizzy, and she kept them in a stack in her closet never to see the light of day. In my lap, Aoi was nodding off to sleep. My breathing turned shallow as I tried thinking of positive things. The first thing that came to my mind was a grove of dried cherry trees and a mountain sunrise with a colleague.

He knows.

I'm an embarrassment.

I'm a disappointment to my parents.

I'm pitiful in his eyes.

That is pathetic.

I'm a failure as a musician.