loop ||•annyeongz•||

chapter 9

Day 6

Yujin fluttered her eyes open. Her body felt numb and her vision wavered. Darkness. All she could make out in the dazed state was darkness. She looked around. Indeed the world around her was dark and empty.

She rubbed her cold and clammy hands together and briefly tried to remember what had happened before she ended up in that place. Her head pounded at the attempt and she ultimately gave up. The surface beneath her was cold and concrete-like, hard and rough. Yujin got up from her sitting position and walked towards a random direction, too dazed to care.

She continued walking, her thoughts running a thousand miles per hour yet something at the back of her mind telling her not to question anything. There were sounds. Voices, to be exact. Yujin felt a familiar churn of at the pit of her stomach. As she inched closer to the direction of the sounds, Yujin felt adrenaline rush to her veins, her heart pounding at the mere possibility of anyone and anything popping out of the darkness.

Then, she fell.

The darkness slips from her sight and is instead replaced with several hologram like visions before her. She recognised them, they were from her childhood.

Yujin saw one where she she just celebrated her fifth birthday, a flurry of children running around their backyard of her old house. She spots a five year old Yujin among the little heads with a slightly older but equally as small Chaeyeon and Chaewon. She also saw one where she had touched a soccer ball for the first time at age six and another at thirteen years old when she had first made it to the team.

Just like that, all of her past came rewinding back before her eyes as she continued to fall into the seemingly endless abyss. Yujin sees all her life flash by with her own eyes as she witnesses the entire cycle of her being, from childhood to adulthood.

The dark hole that had swallowed her whole seemed to go on forever. That was until she was sudden met with stillness. In fact the whole movement was so sudden she felt her body jolt and her eyes shutting close. She felt gravity return below her feet.

When she opened her eyes however, she found herself in a hallway of a building. She quickly recognised the interior and her mind raced at the thought. Suddenly, she heard noises from a room at the farthest left. Yujin swallowed nervously.

Then, the door opened. A man could be seen dragging out a girl from the room. Yujin felt her breath hitch. Wonyoung.

Two other men followed and Yujin recognised them almost immediately. They were the same men who had attacked her and Wonyoung.

Her heart clenched at the sight of the younger girl cowering in fear at the sight of three other men towering over her. She cringed at the obnoxiously loud voice of one of the men who yelled at the terrified girl.

"You're lucky boss asked us not to touch you. Otherwise you would've made a good little snack. Right, boys?" The man who Yujin recognised as the one who had given her the wounds spat out with a sick grin. The other two followed and simply laughed.

Yujin gritted her teeth at the sight, she jolted her body forward to charge at them. But her body never moved, it was as if she was rooted in her spot. Yujin stopped in horror, realising that she could not feel her body. It was as if she was in a dream. A fucking dream.

Turns out she was only sub conscious.

Yujin wanted to panic. She was starting to question the whole predicament when she heard soft sniffles from the end of the hallway.

Wonyoung was high end bawling with her head buried in her knees, her fingernails digging into the flesh of her calves thus leaving marks on them. Yujin felt her heart squeeze. She wanted so badly to run over to younger girl and wrap her in her arms, tell her that everything was going to be okay.

Except everything was not okay and neither of them could lie about it.

She watched the girl who had been the centre of all frenzy and hysteria during her past few (repeated) days choke out painful sobs all alone in an empty corner of the hallway. Each sob felt like a stab to her chest. Yujin had seen Wonyoung through some great miseries, even seeing her die at some point yet something about the younger girl struggling to breathe in between her sobs ripped Yujin apart. She wanted to hold Wonyoung and comfort her, so much it physically hurt.

Minutes passed with Wonyoung struggling to stop her own tears and regaining her breath at the same time. Just then, her ringtone rang across the silent hallway, bouncing off the walls. Wonyoung fumbled to pick up the device.

"Hello?" She answered groggily.

"Yes?" She answered once more, her jaw now visibly clenched. Wonyoung had not put the conversation on speaker so Yujin had no idea as to who she was speaking to or what the subject of the conversation was so she chose to simply observe the younger girl.

She sees Wonyoung frown and press her lips into a thin line and Yujin assumes that it must not have been a pleasant conversation. The other girl hums a little and hangs up.

Yujin sees the younger girl stand up from her position and make her way to her room, closing the door behind her.

Then suddenly the surface beneath her crumbles. Yujin closed her eyes again, feeling drowsiness engulf her. She was falling again. Her body felt stiff and she could not feel or move even of she wanted to. She closed her eyes. Her eyelids never felt heavier.

Then she heard voices.

"Wonyoung, it's so good to see you again." The unfamiliar voice pulled her back to her sub conscience once more. She however could not see anything. Yujin knew it was a man however, judging from the deepness.

"Let's just get this over with." Wonyoung's icy tone almost felt foreign for some reason.

"Wonyoung, listen I don't have much time left..." The man went into a violent coughing fit. Wonyoung however didn't seemed worried or fazed at all. If she was, then she didn't say anything.

"Sweetheart, listen-"

"I told you not to call me that."

"Right. I'm sorry."

"What the fuck do you want now?"

Yujin winced at the bluntness.

"Wonyoung, I'm sorry and I know I can never say that enough for you to forgive me but I just wanted to see you before I go. It might be my last."

"I thought I told you that I don't want anything to do with you?"

"I'm going to die soon, Wonyoung. I just want you to forgive me before that."

Wonyoung snorted. "Right. Like you just didn't take everything away from me and called it a day by running away and abandoning me in the middle of nowhere."

"I'm sorry for that too. But if you atleast find it in your heart to forgive me for all I did-"

"You fucking killed my mother. Remember?"

There was a deafening silence. Temperatures shifted. Yujin gulped silently.

"Do you know how hard it was to go through without anyone by my side to support me? I was forced to become an orphan and what did you do? Right, nothing. You were so concerned about your own pathetic life being on the run that you forgot you had a daughter."

Yujin heard sniffles again. Wonyoung was crying. Her chest tightened.

"I'm sorry, Wonyoung. I really am." The man also seemed to be crying.

"Why, dad?"

Then, Yujin fell again.

Omg 200 reads shshsgvshs thanks you all so much I'll try to be less lazy and update faster😭

Also I promise the next chapter is going to longer lol I'm just lazy pls forgive me