𝗮𝗲𝗿𝗶 𝘂𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗮 𝘅 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿, 𝗵𝘂𝗵 𝘆𝘂𝗻𝗷𝗶𝗻 𝘅 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿
part of the series: best friends
warnings: angst, depression, grief
they say there are five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
you went through the first stage immediately after yunjin showed you the article. at first, you refused to believe it. you denied everything immediately, but given the situation with chaewon, you decided to part ways. you figured the le sserafim members needed their time to take in the news they just received regarding their leader.
you also needed time to process everything that happened. it was only right that you would leave to process the news you received that night as well.
that night, you returned to the dorm and cried in yujin’s arms. you showed her the images, and the look on your leader’s face was one full of pity. yujin felt terrible. it was hard enough to see you such a wreck in the living room, tears cascading down your face. anyone would hurt to see someone they cared about in such distress.
however, it made her heart ache even more because yujin felt like she had failed you.
yujin’s arms braced you as you moved away from wonyoung, who was looking at the article with gaeul. the images of aeri’s hands against his chest, and his head buried in hers, burned just like the acid rain pouring down your face.
“no,” you whimpered. “no it’s not her, it can’t be.” your voice wavered as you spoke, causing your member’s hearts to break even more. liz’s hand rubbed your back while rei began pacing.
wonyoung had told the rest of the girls about your situation once she saw the dispatch headline. she wanted to help you by sparing you from re-telling the painful story several more times, especially since she knew how distraught you would be right now.
she was right, and at the time you were thankful for the small gesture, but you were too in denial to appreciate it fully.
“y/n,” yujin said softly, doing her best to not send you spiraling even more. “they have confirmed it’s her.”
yujin wasn’t seulgi, but she knew you needed to have support right now. the issue was, you were making it very difficult because you were so in denial. even with the photo evidence, you couldn’t fathom aeri having sex with him out of pure spite.
“can we just kill her?” gaeul asked as she zoomed in on the photos one by one, earning a swift nod from wonyoung. “i agree.”
yujin’s gaze looked up as she gave them a ‘cut it out’ stare, shutting both of the members up immediately. leeseo returned from the kitchen with a glass of water, setting it down gently on the coffee table where you were sitting next to.
your head was buried in yujin’s shoulder as she continued to do her best and not let your head hit the floor. the leader mouthed a “thank you” to the youngest member, appreciating how even though she didn’t understand fully, but still cared about you enough to want to do something at least, even if it was small.
“do you want us to call seulgi?” gaeul asked gently, trying to offer an idea to help the situation.
you only started sobbing harder at the thought of your sister. your sister was the one who always grounded you, who was always there when you had to run and hide. you needed her.
which was why she immediately came over the next day, when your denial started to turn into anger.
seulgi’s arms wrapped around your torso tightly as you let out tears of anger and frustration. wonyoung wasn’t present in the room with you two, thankfully, but you didn’t even think about anyone else other than the SM rapper.
“why would she do that? i didn’t even get to explain,” you sniffled into her shoulder. you didn’t understand how everything went south so quickly. aeri was your best friend, but you wanted her to be more than that. you thought she wanted the same thing, which was why you were so confused.
“i dont understand, unnie.” you choked out, only making seulgi’s heart squeeze tighter. when yujin had called her over, she explained everything that had happened.
it took both gaeul and yujin convincing her to not go on a manhunt for the aespa member in that moment. giselle was her junior, but she didn’t care about that. her younger sister was in pain, and the person who caused such pain, was aeri.
and when someone hurts you? seulgi wants to hurt them back at least ten fold.
she knew you were confused and sad, but she also knew you had never felt this way for anyone else before. you were old enough to know that you felt things, but you were young enough to not really know how to navigate such feelings.
“just because you don’t understand something doesn’t mean it’s not true, y/n/n.” the dark haired girl murmured into your hair, placing a soft kiss to your temple. seulgi was just as confused as you were, but she was old enough to know the facts.
aeri’s feelings for you were as strong as yours for hers, but her pride was stronger.
“i want to hate her,” you coughed out, chest dry heaving as you continued to weep. your head was filled with so many questions, to which you had no answers to. “but i can’t.”
however, one thing you did know was that no matter what you felt, you knew you didn’t actually hate her. you just hated what she did, even though you were sure she hated what you did as well.
“i know, y/n.” your sister said softly, pulling your head from her shoulder so she could wipe your tears with her hands. “but everything is going to be okay.”
your sister’s words rang in your head as the next day brought you from anger to the next stage: bargaining.
at first, you thought maybe it was just them being drunk and horny again. rumors were already spreading that they possibly could have been drunk online, which would make sense.
either way, you had done the same thing with yunjin, so it was only fair. you couldn’t be a hypocrite when you had done the exact same thing not just once, but many other times.
this idea all went out the window when SM entertainment released a statement regarding both of the rappers.
BOTH GISELLE AND JENO WERE NOT UNDER ANY SUBSTANCES AT THE TIME. BOTH HAD ALSO CONSENTED TO THE SEXUAL ACTIVITIES. DISCIPLINARY ACTIONS WILL BE TAKEN ACCORDINGLY. WE ASK FOR YOUR RESPECT AND PRIVACY AS WE DEAL WITH THE SITUATION.
your thinking process then transitioned to thinking that maybe it was something aeri did out of spite. the aespa member was known for being petty, so you naturally would not put it past her to do such an act and willingly get caught for it.
it made sense to you, truly. why else would she want to have sex with him, unless it was out of pure spite? your best friend was a scorpio for crying out loud, everything she did just had to be ten times worse in retaliation.
your bargaining phase continued for a few days, until you woke up one morning to see SM entertainment confirming the relationship between jeno and giselle.
SM ENTERTAINMENT CONFIRMS ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AESPA’S GISELLE AND NCT’S JENO.
the bargaining turned into depression in that single moment. you also began spiraled into a hole that felt like an endless abyss.
you missed practice twice, but yujin let it slide considering how you had not left your bed at all. wonyoung was worried, and often even checked to make sure you were still alive considering how you had not moved an inch.
your roommate often left you alone, only being in the room when she needed to be. she wanted to give you the space and alone time you desperately needed, and clearly wanted, because she knew how badly you were hurting.
when you showered after practices, you spent hours standing there. the water beating against your body and head were a form of grounding, especially when the water became freezing cold and your body shivered as a result. you barely showered, but when you did, you were in there for so long that wonyoung had to make sure you were still okay.
you didn’t sleep much, or at least, you didn’t realize when you were sleeping. every day seemed the same as the one before. you lost track of time as you were also losing pieces of yourself. it felt like you were just floating, not really here nor there; only struggling to exist with your grief.
you stopped eating during that time as well, and as a result, it made gaeul forcefully feed you one slice of toast every evening because it was the only time you’d be willing to eat something. even if you only ate half of the toast, she made sure you would eat at least something.
IVE had a performance in four days, meaning that you could not afford to be out of it. inkigayo was no small occasion, and your members had spent hours practicing to prepare for it.
you had done your best to show up, giving your all even though you looked miserable. your choreographer even was told not to ask about how you were doing out of fear that you would only break down again.
at this point, you had run out of tears to cry because it hurt so badly that there was no point where you weren’t hurting. every waking moment of every single day consisted of the same sickening soreness.
seulgi had told you that you cared, and because you cared so much, your grief was going to be as deep as your feelings were. unfortunately for you, this meant that you were going to be hurting for a while.
your members knew how bad you were getting, which was why they called the last person who could possibly help you out.
the door to your room opened slowly, but you thought nothing of it, thinking it was your roommate coming in to get something. you didn’t bother turning to check, either.
you recognized it was yunjin from her scent as she wrapped her arms around your torso when she slipped under your covers.
“hi,” she murmured into your messy hair. you didn’t bother turning to face her, already feeling numb enough to not really care that she was there. “you look exhausted.”
“why are you here, yunjin?” you whispered in a voice so small that if it wasn’t for the close proximity, she would not have been able to hear you.
truth be told, yunjin felt guilty for snooping through your phone. however, she didn’t regret it in the slightest. while you were spending your days spiraling and avoiding contact with everyone, including your sister, yunjin had been calling yujin to ask about your condition on a daily basis.
“im here to see you, silly.” she mumbled into your cheek. the american was worried about you from the moment you left the le sserafim dorm. she saw the way your soul drained from your eyes, and now, she could see the life completely drained from your body. you were nothing but a shell of your former self at this point.
silence lingered for a while, you didn’t know how long. it wasn’t like you could tell anyway. everything felt the same. the never ending ache in your chest, the hole that only grew until it was swallowing you entirely.
yunjin had sat with her own feelings long enough to know that she cared about you. she cared about your good days just as much as your bad days. she wanted to make sure that despite your darkness consuming you, she would try and shed even a small fraction of light for you.
and if she couldn’t shed any light on your situation, then she would sit in the dark with you so you weren’t alone.
the american was the cause of some of this as well, after all she had started this with you. it only made sense for her to stick with you until the end.
it was this realization that began your path of slow acceptance, and you finally felt the full effect of it the night before the inkigayo performance.
you decided to take yujin’s request at the restaurant to heart. you were going to call her one final time, and if she didn’t answer, you were going to move on, even if it meant forcing yourself to.
your finger tapped on the rapper’s contact, thumb hovering over the green icon. swallowing your pride and anxiety, you pressed it, and left it on speaker as it rang.
the dial tones were deafening, as each one passed, your heartbeat only increased with anticipation. this was the final moment of truth for your relationship with aeri.
it had been a long few months of back and forth, but you had known aeri for years. aeri was your best friend before anything else, and you knew that if you left her life completely, it would be forever.
years of history, friendship, and moments so intimate that no one else knew about other than you both. everything from the laughter to the tears, would be nothing more than mere memories. your heart ached at the thought of leaving the girl you cared about more than anything.
you didn’t want to do it, in fact, you would rather run and hide from it all. it would be easier, after all.
except when the dial tone turned into a voicemail message, you knew you had to face the reality.
“hey, this is aeri, leave a message after the beep.”
you swallowed thickly, phone shaking in your palm as you began the final message you would leave your best friend.
the silence made your heart break even more once you realized how ironic it was. you were never going to speak to her again after this. this was it.
“i hope you’re doing good. because i’m not.”
“im not drunk either, so uh, everything i say right now is full of mind.”
the silence continued to feed your emotions and tear at your shattered heart.
“i haven’t been since the date. im sure you haven’t been either. i just wanted to say that,”
a lump in your throat formed. you knew you had to say everything, even if it hurt. it was the last chance you would ever get.
“i’m sorry for what i did, and for not telling you. but i hope you know that even though i was sleeping with yunjin, i did it to forget about you.”
you took a deep breath before continuing. “there was never a moment, in our friendship or our situationship, that i was not wanting you. even after you broke my old phone when you dropped it down the stairs, or when you made me wear your shirt for a week, even though i hated it.”
the ghost of a smile appeared on your face at the fond memories with the japanese girl. you knew that aeri wasn’t a bad person, and you couldn’t hate her, even when she hurt you the most.
“and i even still cared about you–i still wanted you, even when you hurt me.”
your breath hitched in your throat as tears formed in your eyes. losing someone to death would have been easier than losing someone still alive. it only took falling for aeri for you to realize it.
“aeri, i know you made it so hard to fall for you. but i still fell anyway, even when we were still just friends. i liked you for a very long time. it was something i thought that would just go away, but then we started sleeping together, and,”
you paused to wipe the snot from your nose. a sniffle was all you could muster before you continued. there was no point in turning back now, you were already this far into the conversation.
“and then i fell in love with you during everything.”
“from the way you laughed, the way you sang, the way you felt. everything that made you, you, was why i liked you in the first place, but it just made me fall in love harder when things got more intimate.”
“you see that night as a mistake, i know, you always said that. but to me, it meant so much.” a silent sob escaped your lips, tears falling down your cheeks and landing on your floor.
“then everything went south so quickly, but you would have never known how much it hurt me. because you didn’t even see me at the party,”
“and you never saw my feelings, so for so long i thought it was a mistake,”
“but even when you hurt me,”
“even when you made me cry, for hours. even when i still wanted you, after everything,”
“and even though you are the hardest to love,”
you swallowed thickly the lump that formed. you had to say it. you needed to say how you truly felt because it was the fist and last time you would say it.
it was the last time you would call her number. it was the last time you would see her contact name. it was the last time you would hear her voice, even if it was just through a voicemail message.
“i have to let you go. but i hope you know that,”
the tears fell on your phone, soaking your fingertips that held the small device in your hand. everything was coming to a close, and your confession was the final key to closing this chapter of your story with aeri.
“i hope you know that i love you.”
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