Snapshots | Twice

Dahyun - The family portrait

A/N: WARNING: Graphic descriptions and mentions of suicide and self harm. Discretion advised.

Dahyun couldn't look at her face. Not without bursting into tears. Not without feeling immensely sick. Not without her head pounding and pounding and memories flooding her mind.

When Momo had first committed suicide and it was all still fresh in everyone's minds, Dahyun had basically been outcast from the group by everyone except Jihyo. Jihyo seemed to share the guilt of Momo's death with Dahyun even when she hadn't done anything. No matter how hard she tried to reconcile with the girls, they would ignore her completely. It was only Jihyo who would hold her and cry with her and listen to her.

So to not be an inconvenience or a roadblock in the dorms, Dahyun shut herself away in her room. Jihyo would visit her and make sure she ate, but nobody else payed her any attention.

It was only a few months after Momo's death that Tzuyu came around. She has sat with Dahyun during one of her frequent panic attacks. She had looked at her. She had talked to her. Just the thought of one of the girls acknowledging her made her body surge with joy.

She was able to rebuild her friendship with her quickly and Tzuyu forgave her. 

Nobody else did. Not for a very long time.

Once everyone had stopped pretending that Dahyun didn't exist, she felt comfortable coming out of her room. But there was always one problem.

There were so many photos hanging on the walls. Too many of them had her face in it.

At first she would bare with it and at night she would cry and try to hurt herself with a kitchen knife. She was never brave enough. She couldn't do it. So, she thought of a solution.

She walked through the dorm at night and every photograph with Momo in it would be turned around, so when she awoke in the morning, she wouldn't feel the gaze of the girl she had loved so much on her back as she ate breakfast...

It worked for a week. Then someone started to turn them around again.

It had been a constant war with the unknown person for two years. Dahyun would turn the pictures around in the night, and then they would be back to normal when she woke up. So tonight, she would win this war, once and for all.

She had a nice black permanent marker she bought from an expensive stationary store.

Within no time at all, Dahyun found herself in a flood of tears as she scribbled over Momo's face in every picture she could find.

She harshly moved the inky tip over her beautiful eyes. Over her bright smiles. Over her soft hair. There would be no trace of Momo when she was done. Just a big black smear. Just like the smear of blood she had left behind when she killed herself.

She picked up a family portrait. It was Twice at the beach. It brought back happy memories. But Momo was in the photo. 

Dahyun ran her fingers over her face. Then she uncapped the pen.

"I can't stand you." She said. 

Just before she was able to deface the frame, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She whipped her head around to see Tzuyu towering over her.

"I knew it was you."