⋆⭒˚.⋆ UNDER THE NORTHERN STAR | OT6
SYNOPSIS: You thought you had learned everything you needed to know about navigating life as part of KATSEYE. But when one of the most important piece of you is ripped away, you find yourself drowning with nowhere to reach out to to pull yourself away from the darkness.
PAIRING: OT6 x platonic!7th member!reader
CONTENT WARNINGS: Self-deprecating thoughts/jokes, suicidal ideation, self harm if you squint, depression, grief, angst, hurt/comfort, allusions to character death, allusions to a car accident, fluff, happy (bittersweet?) ending
PLAYING NOW: How Long, How Low? - Chance Peña, Hayd
WC: 7.3k
a/n: this fic is not meant to glorify topics revolving around mental health and grief. uhm this kinda a personal fic for me, written from real grief about my own life. brooklyn wherever you are now, i know you passed doing what you loved and i hope you know how much we miss you. happy new year bro, this one's for you.
No one was really sure where or when it happened. When the sunshine of KATSEYE dimmed her light. Where she disappeared off to once the cameras stopped running. Yoonchae couldn’t figure out when you stopped appearing in her room in the evening, ready with snacks to help her improve her English and practice the note changes Lara had taught her. Megan didn’t know when you stopped joining her in her room to play a couple of idle video games and laugh about whatever the latest KATSEYE meme was. Lara was unsure when you stopped joining her on the couch in the living room to watch random TikTok videos with her or play 8-ball against her on her phone. Daniela couldn’t pinpoint when the music from your room that you played when you would practice freestyling to your favourite songs suddenly stopped, replaced by a deathly silence. Sophia couldn’t tell when you stopped showing up in the kitchen to help her cook dinner or even just sit on the counter swinging your legs as you watched her work. Manon wasn’t able to recall when you stopped bursting into her room unannounced wanting to hear about stories from Switzerland and her life before KATSEYE, completely unbothered by her fluctuating health.
No one knew. But once they realised it, they couldn’t stop thinking about it. No one could see exactly how far you had collapsed into yourself because you were no longer strong enough to hold yourself up.
The issue was that every time someone tried to bring it up, you always managed to change the subject. You started talking about how you were just tired or stressed about choreography before you turned the conversation towards a TV show Manon was watching or a new singer Lara had become obsessed with. For just a moment, you allowed them a miniscule glimpse into your life before you snatched the spotlight and thrust it back onto them.
It got to the point where none of them were sure what else they could try. Every invitation to hang out was either ignored, cancelled or obliged for a minute before you disappeared back into your room again.
Even you weren’t sure. You didn’t know why you had broken as much as you had. The girls you had in the group were the closest people you had in your life. Your sisters. The girls from Dream Academy had been bonded with you by something stronger than what you could name. For some reason though, his loss felt like the world had been ripped from under your feet, leaving you falling further and further into an endless chasm so deep you weren’t sure when you were ever going to hit rock bottom.
You found yourself lying back on the grass in the backyard on a surprising clear winter night. All of the girls were busy doing their own thing and you didn’t want to bother them with the heavy numbness that had settled in your chest over the last few weeks. It wasn’t worth it. You weren’t worth it. Looking up at the night sky, stars dotting the expansive dark blanketing the horizon, you didn’t feel the same sense of awe you used to feel when you looked at the stars with him. It was just emptiness. You felt insignificant in the face of something so huge. The chilling bite of the winter began to push through your clothing like needles being poked into your skin. Unrelenting and painful in a way that reminded you that you were, in fact, still capable of feeling something.
Your eyes traced the constellations, not with wonder, but with a soulless search. Slowly but surely, your gaze drifted towards the bright northern star. The one he said would always lead you home. But home was where the heart was and right now? You didn’t have a heart.
You pushed yourself off the ground having been outside for hours, dusting off whatever grass and dirt was clinging to your clothes as you walked over to the sliding door. Your joints felt frozen stiff, through no one’s fault but your own as you shuffled onto the outdoor deck. Not wanting to bother anyone, you slid the door open as quietly as possible and crept towards your room without a creak in the floorboards. You thought you were in the clear. That the late hour and lack of movement in the house meant that no one had noticed.
Yoonchae noticed. Up in the middle of the night, silently searching for a snack, she had seen you creep back into the house, hidden by the shadows. She frowned when she saw your hunched form moving down the hallway towards your room, not sure how she was supposed to approach the situation. So she did the one thing she was told she could always do. Ask Sophia.
“Sophia?” the maknae whispered as she returned to the room she shared with the leader of the group. The older girl in question let out a wordless grunt when she sensed the disturbance in the otherwise silent air. “Sophia,” Yoonchae tried again, her voice more urgent as she stepped closer.
“Hm? What is it?” Sophia whined as she squeezed her eyes shut, turning over in her half-asleep state.
“Something is wrong with Y/N,” Yoonchae insisted, close enough to grip Sophia’s shoulder.
Alarms sounded in Sophia’s mind as she pushed herself into a seated position, head abruptly turning to face Yoonchae’s in the dark. Her brain ran through all of the worst case scenarios. That you were missing. Or hurt. Or–
“Where is she?” Sophia asked, already tearing the covers of her bed away from her body.
“In her room,” Yoonchae replied, standing up and stepping back slightly.
“Then why–” she started, wondering why the maknae’s face looked so panicked and frantic in the middle of the night. Her line of sight shifted towards her hands. “Why do you have seaweed?”
“Not important,” the girl huffed. “Y/N was outside. For hours.”
If it had been any other time of the day, at any point before you had torn yourself away from their comfort, Sophia wouldn’t have batted an eye. But it was the middle of the night and you had torn yourself away from them and Yoonchae was standing in front of her, fidgeting with the packet of seaweed in her hands and looking uncharacteristically concerned. “What are you talking about, chip?” Sophia asked, holding a hand out to the younger girl in an attempt to offer some comfort.
To her relief, Yoonchae took her hand, squeezing it tightly as she searched for reassurance. “She went outside after dinner,” she began slowly. “And I was in the kitchen looking for seaweed and she came inside just now.”
“She was out there in the cold for five hours?” Sophia asked, even though she had already done the math in her head by the time Yoonchae started nodding. The older girl let out a long sigh, contemplating how to approach the situation. “You stay here,” she whispered as she slid out of bed. “I’ll go and check on her.”
Sophia quietly slipped into the hallway, quickly catching onto the light seeping out from underneath the door to the bathroom and the faint rush of the tap at the sink. She carefully walked over to the door, knocking lightly so as not to startle whoever was on the other side of anyone who was sleeping lightly nearby. “Y/N?” she whispered into the wood, hoping the sound of your name would reach the other side
After a few moments, the door was unlocked allowing Sophia to quickly slip into the space and close the door behind her. She turned back around to face you, quickly noting the red tint to your cheeks, nose, ears, and the tips of your fingers. All signs that supported Yoonchae’s claim you were outside in the cold. “I was just… brushing my teeth,” you explained, picking up your toothbrush lamely to support your explanation. You had no idea anyone else in the house was awake and you felt bad, thinking that you had woken her.
“Y/N,” Sophia said softly, attempting to hold your hand. You flinched away before she could grasp your fingers and you tried to mask the sudden movement by placing your toothbrush back in the holder. “What’s going on?” she tried.
“Nothing,” you replied, your voice too hasty and high-pitched to carry a truthful message. “Just brushing my teeth “ The words sounded weak and fake, even to your own ears so you couldn’t even imagine how Sophia was hearing you. You wanted nothing more than for the ground to swallow you whole so you could pretend the moment never actually happened.
“Y/N–,” Sophia tried again but you didn't let her get any further, guilt coursing through your veins at the thought of keeping her up.
“I’m gonna go to sleep,” you interrupted, moving past her and opening the door before she could say another word. She stood in the doorway to the bathroom, watching you walk down the hall and slip into your bedroom. Leaning her head against the doorframe, she observed the closed door to your room, wondering where on earth her happy ray of sunshine had gone. What had dimmed the bright light you usually brought into every room alongside you?
Sophia and Yoonchae kept the midnight encounter/discovery to themselves, waiting for you to broach the topic first. You never did and continued to move through the days like you always did. With just enough energy so as not to draw attention from managers or instructors, but not enough to stop the girls surrounding you from worrying about you.
Every time Sophia looked at you she felt that sinking sensation in her stomach again. The feeling that told her something was seriously wrong with one of her girls. But she knew something was wrong. She’d known for a while. That sinking sensation in her stomach was accompanied by the weight of hopelessness. The kind that followed the knowledge that she was forced to sit on the sidelines while she watched someone she loved struggle alone with something she couldn’t see. Something she couldn’t fight on your behalf.
She tried, in her own way, to let you know that she knew you were struggling and that she was there to help you when you were ready to reach out. She posted on her social media about messages of hope and the importance of knowing that it was okay to lean on people when you needed support. In your mind, these messages were for the Eyekons, for her friends and family, for the other girls who made up the group that you had learned to call your sisters.
The messages weren’t meant for you because how could they be? Sophia was trying to save people who could be saved. You were damaged goods. Damaged goods were tossed out, rejected, worthless. Damaged goods couldn’t be saved. You knew the weakness that you were showing when you couldn’t defend yourself against your own head would be punished. There was no place for weakness in your soul. That is what you had been taught. Since seeing Sophia’s posts for mental health, you resolved to fix that flaw. Rid yourself of the weakness or, at the very least, make it appear as though there were no weaknesses to begin with. After all, appearances were everything.
After Sophia’s post about her multo, you showed up in the KATSEYE house’s living room of your own volition. Without the sweet coaxing of one of the girls. You forced a bit more pep into your step as you walked through the house towards the kitchen, even humming the tune to one of your favourite songs while you rummaged through the fridge.
All the girls froze when they heard the notes drifting through the space, having not heard you sing outside a performance or rehearsal for the past month. You paid no attention to their reactions, determined to make the act seem as natural as possible. Once you found the small bottle of orange juice that you had purposefully tucked away from prying eyes at the back of the fridge, you walked over to the couch and plopped yourself down next to Yoonchae, taking a sip from your bottle of juice.
The maknae leaned into your shoulder ever so slightly, almost as if she was checking that you were actually, physically there. She could feel the warmth of your body through the oversized hoodie you had haphazardly thrown on before leaving the security of your own bedroom and decided to trust that it wasn’t a hallucination. That you were there, sitting next to her, a bottle of orange juice in your hand like the last month had never occurred.
Daniela observed the interaction from where she was squished on an armchair alongside Sophia. The change in your mood should have been a relief to them. They were starting to see the version of you that they knew shining through again. The version of you that cuddled next to one of them while watching TV. They watched you accept Yoonchae’s contact, the same contact you had rejected for the last month. It made them smile. Daniela relaxed, truly starting to believe that you were okay. That the last month of their lives had just been a fluke. Maybe you had just been exhausted with the choreography and performances.
The idea worried Sophia though, knowing that KATSEYE had a mini European tour planned to promote Beautiful Chaos. Everything they had been doing recently was in preparation for their wider tour but when she saw the plan for what they would be doing in Europe, she worried for everyone in the group, including herself. The sheer number of interviews they would be conducting in one day was enough to make her feel tired already. She worried that it would break you further than the last few weeks already had.
“I’m sick of this,” Manon groaned, drawing everyone’s attention. She looked up, a little sheepishly, like she couldn’t believe she had said it aloud. “What? This movie sucks.”
“Lord of the Rings does not suck,” Megan shot back from where she was sitting on the other side of Yoonchae.
“It’s kind of long,” Yoonchae admitted, letting out a yawn to punctuate her point.
Megan looked at her like the Korean had personally wronged her entire bloodline. “That’s part of the charm!”
Yoonchae rolled her eyes and glanced at you, causing the two of you to break out into giggles. Pretending felt easier when it was with the girls and you wondered why you hadn’t done it the entire time since you got the phone call that he had died. Maybe that way you could have avoided the confused and pitiful glances.
“We can do a Lord of the Rings marathon another time,” you offered, looking at Megan. “Why don’t we watch something a little lighter right now?”
“I like that suggestion,” Lara said, perking up slightly at the prospect of changing the movie.
“Just say you hate me,” Megan whined, burying her face in her hands.
You reached over Yoonchae and patted Megan’s shoulder as you stole the remote from her lap, passing it over to Sophia so she could pick the movie. Megan grumbled something incoherently and you smiled lightly as you continued to sip your orange juice.
Sophia turned on The Princess Diaries eliciting cheers from the whole group, even Megan who quickly forgave the Lord of the Rings betrayal. You relaxed into the couch a little bit, your body going lax around halfway through the movie. The tension was released from your muscles and for once, you allowed yourself to exist. Yoonchae’s head dropped onto your shoulder at some point towards the end, the younger girl feeling safe enough next to you to let her eyes droop.
When you noticed her weight on your shoulder, you adjusted yourself slightly to make yourself a more comfortable pillow. She snuggled closer to you and you felt something warm bloom in your chest. Something familiar. Something that felt like home. Sophia gave the two of you a warm smile as she turned on the sequel and Megan moved her blanket to cover both of you.
Yoonchae stirred again somewhere towards the end of the movie, eye blinking slowly with a sleepy stupor while the conclusion played. The entire scene felt so painfully domestic and you were once again hit with a barrage of thoughts racing through your head. I don’t deserve this. It’s too comfortable. I’m not allowed to feel like this when he can’t feel anything anymore.
Half of the girls stood up to leave and get ready for bed so no one batted an eye when you excused yourself to return to your room. There was a weight sitting uneasily on your shoulders as you pushed your bedroom door open and close again, hearing the lock click as you twisted it into place.
The second you realised that you were safe from prying eyes in the confines of your room again, the smile slipped off your face in favour of the neutral, thin line of your lips pressed together. Your shoulders slumped with the invisible weight again and your feet dragged along the floor as you moved over to your bed. You dropped onto the mattress, lying back on top of the covers and letting your body take on that weightlessness as you stared up at the little glow in the dark stars you had planted on your ceiling.
You were knocked out of the trance when a knock on your door disturbed the silence which had settled in your room. You reluctantly pulled yourself out of bed and walked back over to the door, fixing your posture into something that didn’t make you look pathetic as you opened the door and peeked your head out.
“Hey,” Manon whispered, her eyes immediately meeting yours as the door cracked open.
“Hey,” you responded, hiding the mess that was your room as you stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind you.
Manon smiled softly when you stepped out of your room and closer to her, viewing it as a step away from how you had been acting for the last few weeks. “I just wanted to say that it was nice seeing you choosing to hang out with us today,” she says softly. “Felt like old times, y’know?”
You smile back at her and nod. “Yeah, it was nice,” you comment. “Felt good.” You’re not entirely sure what else to add to your response, feeling the silence between the two of you bordering on awkward.
“Yeah,” Manon breathed. “That’s kinda all I wanted to say but I’m glad you’re feeling better.” She smiled at you again and squeezed your shoulder. “Good night, Y/N.”
“Good night, Manon,” you replied, stepping back from her again as you both went in your own directions. Her to the room she shared with Daniela and you to the mess of your room. One filled with clothes you couldn’t be bothered to pick up, curtains you didn’t care to pull closed and a desk that kept piling with items you had no interest in putting away.
Five hours of committing to pretending you were okay and you already had everyone convinced that something had changed for the better. It was exhausting but god, it felt good to know they wouldn’t worry about you anymore in the same way they had for the last month.
The only question now: how much longer would you be able to keep it up?
The flight to London came quicker than you had expected, the seven of you crammed into a private jet to the United Kingdom. Manon and Lara spent the beginning of the trip practicing their best British accents, leading Megan and Daniela to join in. You had rolled your eyes good naturedly at their antics before settling into your seat near the front next to Sophia. You pulled your headphones over your ears and activated the noise-cancelling feature as you turned on your playlist. Knowing that the flight was going to be around ten hours, you closed your eyes and pretended to sleep to avoid a conversation with the very excited Sophia who was practically vibrating with excitement in her seat next to you.
It wasn’t that you didn’t like talking to her, you just didn’t have the energy to maintain a conversation anymore and you didn't want her to waste her time talking to you when she could be spending it talking to someone who would actively listen and share her excitement.
You peeked your eyes open to stare out the plane window at the sunset above the clouds. Another sunset that made you think of him. Another sunset that he would never get to see. You sighed slightly to yourself at the realisation, feeling the anger and despair tumbling around in your thoughts until they mixed into the familiar numbness you had grown to find comfort in.
Sophia saw your body relax in the seat next to her and she smiled thinking that you were just falling into a deep sleep. Little did she know that you weren’t asleep. Your eyes were just closed as you tried to ignore the growing pressure in your chest that felt like you were suffocating under the weight of his loss, crushed under the burden of fan expectations. You had found it easy to navigate the few interviews you had done recently for the promotion of Beautiful Chaos but a whole set of interviews and appearances, alongside a debut in London would make it a lot harder to hide the dreariness that you had managed to conceal in rehearsals and at home with the girls.
You all touched down in London and having been warned that the paparazzi were already out there waiting for the group to make their first London appearance, you were ready when the group stepped out into the daylight. Well, as close to daylight as you could get when there was a semi-permanent overcast draped across the city. Once you all disappeared into the van that would take you to your hotel, you let out a breath. One that you could pass off as being overwhelmed by the paparazzi. One that was really you realising how terrible the weather really was in England and that you wouldn’t be able to see the stars when night eventually fell.
Sophia rubbed your shoulder from where she was sitting, thinking that you were just getting over the paparazzi and the jet lag and you offered her a small smile in response.
Yoonchae kept a close eye on you because even though you had been able to silently convince everyone else that you were just tired from the flight and the paps, she could see the crease between your eyebrows that only appeared whenever you were thinking about something serious. She tries to catch your eyes but you’re too focused on watching the raindrops sliding down the windows of the van to notice or care that her gaze is fixed on you.
Once the van arrived at the hotel, your manager, Missy, started running you through a few rules, the plan for the following day, and finally, the room arrangements. The pairings were enough to make you blanch.
“Okay, Megan is sharing with Lara. Manon, Sophia, Dani. And Yoonchae and Y/N.”
What. The. Fuck.
No matter what, since the group had first debuted, the groupings had been the same. Sophia and Yoonchae. Daniela and Manon. Lara and Megan. Then you had your own room as agreed in a conversation that you’d had with the company the day after you were introduced as KATSEYE. You never stopped to think about the day they would forget about that conversation.
Pushing your initial shock aside, you met Yoonchae’s gaze and sent her a smile and a thumbs up, hoping that your surprise wouldn’t read as disappointment or anything else negative to the younger girl. She returned your actions with her own smile and thumbs up as the seven of you made your way into the hotel lobby to check in followed by the awkward huddle into the elevator with your suitcases.
The suite you shared with Yoonchae was nice and simple, the younger girl wasting no time in changing into something more comfortable for them to lounge around the hotel room. You followed suit, changing into sweatpants and an oversized hoodie that drowned your frame just the right amount. You spent the first hour of the afternoon lounging around and watching TikTok before you realised that Yoonchae’s eyes kept flicking up to you every few videos.
“Everything okay, chip?” you asked, sitting up on your bed.
“Can you help me with something?” Yoonchae asked, her face turning red when she was caught.
“Yeah, of course, what’s up?” you said as you crossed the room to her bed.
“I just–” she paused for a moment as she searched for the right way to express herself. “I want to practice my English… for the interviews tomorrow.”
Your lips parted slightly as you slowly caught up to what she was asking of you. Ever since he had died, you had stopped dropping into Sophia and Yoonchae’s shared room to help her with her English. All the late night conversations you’d had with her, the maknae occasionally stopping you to ask about the meaning of a certain word, had suddenly faded into nothing.
“Oh, yeah, of course,” you said, settling onto the bed opposite her. “What do you want to talk about today?”
“You.”
“Me?”
Yoonchae nodded, her eyes never once leaving yours. “I missed you.”
“I never left,” you said, your brow creasing in confusion.
“You did,” she replied. “In a way. You stopped hanging out with us and when you were there it didn’t feel like you were.”
“Oh,” is the only thing that escaped your mouth, leaving in a quick breath that you didn’t manage to hold in. “I was just really tired.”
“Tired of what?” Yoonchae said, firing her response back in record time.
You shrugged slightly. “Rehearsals and stuff. Tour’s coming up and that shit was exhausting,” you said, letting out a light chuckle, almost as if that would prove that everything was okay.
Yoonchae frowned at your words, taking them in like she was analysing each and every word. “That’s all?” she asked.
“Yeah,” you said with a practiced nod and smile. “That’s all.”
The younger girl nodded slowly. “If you say so,” she let out eventually.
The two of you quickly fell back into your old routine, talking about a random topic that was both interesting and had new vocabulary for the Korean girl to learn. Every time she grasped a new word, your heart swelled with pride for her. She had come so far in a very short time and no matter how much your brain was clouded by numbness and grief, nothing would stop you from being proud of her. Not now, not ever.
Dinner rolled around and everyone was splitting off into little groups to explore what London had to offer. You ended up getting roped into grabbing dinner and dessert with Yoonchae, Daniela, and Sophia. The pair desperately wanted Yoonchae to try her first ever meal of fish and chips so the maknae had dragged you along as well, slightly scared of what the two older girls were planning for her.
You easily slipped back into the persona that you had practiced to perfection since the movie night, smiling, laughing and joking with the three girls. You recorded Yoonchae trying fish and chips for the first time and took a picture of the two of you with your meals before uploading the photo to your story and the video to your Weverse DMs.
luce stellare 🇮🇹: yoonchae tried fish n chips for the first timeeeee
You finished off the last of your chips and wiped the grease from your fingers, chatting with Yoonchae about what TV show you were going to binge when you got back to the hotel room.
“We have a long day tomorrow,” Sophia warned, picking up on the conversation. “No late nights for either of you.”
“Okay, great leader,” you muttered under your breath, sending a sly smile in Yoonchae’s direction. She smiled back, her grin equally as mischievous as yours.
Sophia simply sighed, sharing a helpless look with Daniela who merely shrugged at the girl’s actions. “Oh, Y/N,” Daniela started. You looked up at her as she continued. “Is your friend Brooklyn coming to this event? He usually visits England around this time, right?”
You frowned slightly, trying to mask your emotions as the Latina mentioned the one name you hadn’t heard since the phone call. “Uh, no,” you said, a little awkwardly. “Not this time.”
Daniela nodded, thinking nothing of it as she continued a conversation with Yoonchae about a random topic that you were too stunned to tune into. Sophia noticed you spacing out, matching the frown on your face when she saw your eyes go unfocused as they stared at the table. Yoonchae seemed to notice too, feeling the Filipina’s body tense next to her, whatever words she was planning to say in response to Daniela’s statement dying on her tongue and Daniela turned to look at you when she saw Yoonchae clamp her mouth shut mid-sentence.
You looked up at the group once you realised their chatter was no longer acting as white noise in your brain. “What happened?” you asked. “Do I have something on my face?” Your hand reached up to your cheek, lightly touching the skin as you felt around for something that wasn’t there.
“Are you okay?” Daniela asked softly. If it weren’t for the fact you were still touching your face as you searched for a nonexistent smudge of sauce on your skin, you might have just broken at the tenderness of her voice.
“Hm? Yeah, I’m fine, why?” You turned to look at her. “Seriously, do I have something on my face?”
She shook her head, pulling your hand away from your face. “You kind of spaced out there.”
You stared at her for a moment. All three of them had stopped talking because… you were spacing out? It didn’t make any sense in your head.
“I’m just jetlagged,” you said slowly, feeling the warmth of Daniela’s hand clasping yours.
“Just jetlagged?” Sophia asked, her gaze razor sharp focused on you.
“Just jetlagged.”
“Let’s go for a walk then,” Yoonchae suggested, standing up. “It’s soooo cold outside. It will wake you up.”
You nodded as you stood up with her, ready to brave the snowy approach of a London winter. Neither of the other girls questioned the decision as Sophia insisted on paying the bill before you stepped outside.
The cold air hit your face instantly and you relished the biting chill that caused the tip of your nose to go red as you shoved your hands into your pockets. Sophia watched you carefully, the sinking feeling in her stomach renewed by your reaction to hearing Brooklyn’s name spill from Daniela’s mouth during dinner. She didn’t get much time before Yoonchae was calling them over to a sign in the middle of the walkway with an LED stick figure walking.
You found yourself zoning out a little again during the KISS interview. You hadn’t meant for it to happen, of course. The host seemed like a genuinely great guy and he was asking you all questions that made the group think because there were questions none of you had really been asked before. Yoonchae nudged you slightly under the table, out of sight of the camera to pull you out of your daze.
“So Y/N and Manon,” Jordan said, turning his attention to the two of you. “A lot of fans have commented on the randomness of your Weverse names. The rest of the girls of usernames that are either their names or renditions of them but Peanutbutterlover02 and, forewarning I’m sorry if I pronounce this wrong, luce stellare? Care to share the backstory?”
Manon laughed slightly at the mention of her Weverse username. “I thought it was funny,” she said simply. “Plus the Eyekons loved it so it stuck.” Everyone turned their attention to you, waiting for your response.
“Oh, luce stellare is Italian. One of my best friends called me that all the time so when the time came to make a username, I chose that,” you explained, doing your best to keep the smile plastered on your face.
What you didn’t see was the rest of the girls struggling to keep smiles on their faces as well. Jordan pivoted to the next question pretty soon after making a joke about “sophia the purse”, making you feel like you could finally breathe again. The respite didn’t last long since the group was shifted between venues for the rest of the day, doing interviews and games to best promote KATSEYE and Beautiful Chaos. Whatever the girls had been planning to say to you in her down time was lost when Megan started struggling to breathe slightly at the back of the van on the way to another shoot just after midday.
You were grateful for the fact that after your slipup during the KISS interview you were able to completely switch on to KATSEYE’s Y/N, the version of you that hadn’t just lost her best friend and was struggling against a tide of emotion you didn’t know how to repress.
The rest of the day ran relatively smoothly but you were still grateful when you were able to rinse the stress of the day from your body with scalding hot water from a shower head that you shouldn’t have spent so long standing under. You changed into a pair of dark blue sweat pants and an oversized hoodie again but instead of staying to talk to Yoonchae in your room like you had the night before, you slipped out of the room as quickly as possible and made your way to the elevator.
Once the elevator doors slid shut, you pressed the button for the top floor of the hotel where you stepped out, dragging your feet along the ground again as you traipsed down the hallway. You stopped at the end where you found a fire exit that led you up to the roof of the building. It wasn’t as tall as some of the hotels you had stayed at before but once you felt the chill of the winter night seep into your bones, none of that mattered to you. You let your surroundings numb your bones as much as his loss had numbed your emotions.
Without meaning to, you found yourself wandering towards the ledge. As someone who had always been afraid of heights, you shocked yourself when you looked down at the road below, filled with a sense of calm that you hadn’t felt in weeks. You could jump. You knew you could. Who would care? Your mind drifted to the girls. The girls who, unbeknownst to you, were seated in Sophia, Daniela, and Manon’s room talking about you with worry written on their faces and laced in their voices. The girls who were shocked by Yoonchae’s loud and sudden entrance, the maknae’s face panicked and her breathing short. The girls who shared in the panic once she told them she couldn’t find you. That she had no idea where you were.
You could jump. But you wouldn’t. Not while you still had a shred of belief that you would burden them more dead than you would alive. You sat on the ledge, legs swinging between the bars of the barricade which had likely been put up to prevent people who were thinking the same thoughts that were running through your head at that moment from taking action.
Instead of focusing on the cars and buses running through the streets below you, you looked up at the cloudy night sky. A night sky where you couldn’t see the northern star. You couldn’t find home. You couldn’t find him. Your Brooklyn.
For the first time in a month you finally felt something. You felt whatever was holding you together snap and the tears spilling over until you were gasping for air on a cold night in London because you didn’t know how to breathe in a world where he wasn’t breathing with you.
You aren’t sure when it happened but suddenly there were arms wrapping around your shoulders, pulling you into another body. Something warm and solid and here and you kept struggling to breathe, too weak to push whoever it was away. You felt so rundown without anywhere left to run and you wondered for a moment if this is how he felt. Wondering how long it would be until you could get out of here. Wondering how low you had bent until you broke. All that ran through your brain was that you couldn’t carry this weight any longer.
“It’s okay, mahal,” you heard a voice whisper in your ear and it strikes you slightly because you would recognise that sweet voice anywhere.
“S-sophia,” you choked out between sobs.
She shushed you as she held you against her. “It’s okay, mahal,” she repeated. “I’m right here, I’ve got you.”
“I can’t do it,” you said, shaking your head as you struggled against her. “I can’t–”
Sophia felt her heart physically break. Her sunshine. Her ray of light. Her baby. Falling into a darkness she hadn’t been able to see. “I’ve got you,” she whispered again. “Just breathe, mahal, breathe.”
“I c-can’t,” you said, tears continuing to flow at the realisation that you couldn’t get them to stop.
She continued to coo, whispering sweet nothings in your ear as her nails dragged along the fabric of the hoodie covering your arm. Slowly but surely, she calmed you down enough until you were merely sniffling in her arms without the courage to look your leader in the eye.
Sophia seemed to get the message, carefully pulling you to your feet, an arm still wrapped around you protectively. “Let’s get you inside,” she said softly. “It’s cold out here, isn’t it?”
You nodded numbly, letting her lead you back inside, down the stairs, down the hall, into the elevator and back towards the room you shared with Yoonchae. The girl in question jumped from her bed at the sound of the door clicking open and before you could react, her arms were wrapping around as she buried her face in your shoulder.
“I was so scared,” she mumbled, her hands grasping you like she was afraid you would disappear again.
Your hands weakly rose to hug her back as Sophia moved past the two of you and further into the room. You stood in the doorway, Yoonchae clinging to your frame, your face streaked with tears and your fingers frozen where they rested on her sleep shirt. You heard Sophia doing something at the stove but Yoonchae didn’t let you focus on it for long before she was carefully pulling you over to her bed.
You were so absorbed in your thoughts and the fact you could hardly feel anything that you didn’t hear the other girls filtering into the room. You barely registered Lara snuggling into your other side, her cheek resting against your shoulder. You looked up blankly, staring at Megan who had settled on the bed in front of you and Manon who was sitting next to her.
Daniela, no matter how much her heart was hurting for you, went to Sophia first. The girl who was standing at the stove making a proper hot chocolate for you because acts of service were one of the first things she looked to when she wanted to comfort people. The Latina walked over and wrapped her arms around Sophia’s waist and rested her cheek against Sophia’s back. In that moment, the older girl felt tears springing to her eyes. How did she not realise how bad it had gotten until it was almost too late?
“You didn’t fail,” Daniela whispered like she was reading the leader’s train of thought. “You brought her back to us. She’s safe.”
“She’s hurting,” Sophia whispered back, her voice anguished. “She’s hurting and I didn’t do anything–”
“You’re doing something now,” Daniela interrupted. “Let that be enough.” She dropped a kiss to Sophia’s shoulder before releasing her hold on the older girl and making her way over to you.
“You talked about him in the past tense today,” Lara whispered eventually, breaking the silence. You nodded, your face still blank, your body still numb.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Manon asked softly, careful that she wasn’t pushing too far.
You shook your head. She nodded in understanding, looking up at Sophia as she brought over some mugs of hot chocolate for everyone.
She pressed the mug into your hands, her fingers lightly touching yours before moving to brush your knuckles. “To warm you up,” she said simply but everyone could hear the raw emotion in her voice.
“I feel like I’m missing pieces of myself,” you rasped eventually, looking down at the hot chocolate swirling in your hands.
“He was really important to you,” Megan offered, her voice low and tender. “Of course it feels that way.”
“I got the call from his parents a month ago,” you said, your voice cracking with the remnants of your earlier breakdown. The girls stayed silent, giving you the space you needed to voice your thoughts. “They told me about the crash. Afterwards, I could only think about our memories from when we were younger and how quickly I had turned into someone else when I realised he wasn’t here anymore and I wondered if this is who I’ve been my entire life.”
“If who had been you?” Yoonchae asked.
“This,” you said vaguely. “A mess. A shell.”
Daniela shook her head quickly. “No. You’re not a shell, mi estrella, you are our Y/N.”
“I don’t even know who I am anymore,” you said quietly. It was the truth. Without him in your life, your sense of self had been shattered.
“That’s okay,” Sophia whispered. “We’ll be here for you, every step of the way, until you figure it out. Everything will click into place and you’ll learn how to keep taking steps forward.”
“He’s still here,” Lara continued, rubbing your arm. “He’s in your thoughts. He’s in your heart. He helped shape who you are. Who we love. That won’t disappear just because you can’t physically have him with you anymore.”
You felt the tears welling up in your eyes again and Yoonchae lightly coaxed the mug towards your lips. “Life is easier when you have hot chocolate,” she explained when you shot her a confused glance.
That made you smile. Despite the crushing weight of guilt and grief you could feel on your shoulders, your girls were assuring you that it was okay to feel like that. In their own ways, they were making sure that the weight wasn’t yours to carry alone anymore.
Somehow, that felt like it would be enough for now.
And when the European visit ended and you were back home in LA, Sophia took you and the girls out into the backyard on a clear night, all of you bundled in jackets, gloves and beanies as you stared up at the sky. With your girls. Your sisters. His spirit was carried in your heart as you searched the constellations like you had on countless other nights both with him by your side and without. Yoonchae’s hand gripped yours from beside you while Sophia clasped your fingers on your other side. You looked up at the sky and you found the northern star again. You found your home.
