She had never expected to get another blow of this size. They had promised that they’d stay together as eight when Sooyeon left, and Sooyoung clung to the promise like no one else.
She didn’t think the promise would be as empty as Taeyeon, the leader, for crying out loud, being the first one to throw in the towel. Sooyoung remembered the times she’d cried to her, the times she’d begged to just be held close, to just be reassured that she was not going to leave her, too. But time had told her it was all a lie.
The blow had come when Sooyoung was at her all-time lowest. She’d started distancing herself, barely came outside of her apartment anymore, barely let anyone in. It was familiar, except now there was no Taeyeon to help her through, and the other members… she couldn’t bother them with her own weaknesses, the blow had hit them just as hard.
The knocks on the door to her apartment caused her to tense up. It was a special kind of knock, a code, almost. Her dogs were quick to rush to the door, but Sooyoung hesitated. She slid her arms into a jumper, just to hide the messy drawings of bruises she’d managed to draw upon herself, to hide most of her skin as she knew she’d lost her shine, her body having been brought back to a size on which she could barely survive.
The small poodle walked back to her, barking as if to wake her up from her thoughts. A quiet sigh passed through her lips as she moved over, hand trembling as she reached the doorknob, opening it ever so slightly.
The person was familiar, more than familiar, but she couldn’t help to feel like she was looking at a stranger. She opened her mouth to say something, struggling to not just break down into a crying mess for the gazillionth time.
Show no emotion, don’t let them see that you’re in pain.
The guilt swallowed her in a wave of howling ghouls and inevitable torment. If there was anyone she should not have left, should have informed of her departure... it would have been Sooyoung. Sweet, fragile Sooyoung. A static quality consum’d her frame; a carnality of instinct scoring pink lines across her soul. A few years ago, perhaps, she would have wept. Would have fallen ‘pon the rupture for forgiveness. Yet here, today, she’s more stoic than she ever was.
Existence without an identity did a number on her; the sallow grey under her eyes, the dispirit in her gaze. Erika had changed. Erika wasn’t Taeyeon. And, frankly, whether that was for the better was an inscrutability within itself.
( So why could she not verbalise the apology seared to her tongue? )
‘Sorry,’ wasn’t sufficient for the ineluctable salinity that had scorched Soo’s cheeks. Erika’s stained fingers combed through the bleached hair; the condition of it was terrible (she could not even afford to pay for a professional).
Am I a bitch? Erika almost stumbled away, the yearning to dissipate, to fade and become nothingness froze the motion in her veins. Her eyes hardened, traversed into something steely, something akin to the demise and the tenebrosity she bore witness to all this time.
( Anyone could see the torment that tortured her each eventide. )
“I know.” She said eventually, her desolate gaze descended; but not before, with great anguish, noting the skeletal figure of the girl she’d once shared laughs, tears with. “I... really am sorry.”
