Invisible String || PURINZ

18 • the lie

Chaewon shook her head. "But I'm not sick. I shouldn't be feeling this way," She mumbled.

Yunjin frowned. "How bad is it? It's not just a 'freakout', is it?" She asked.

The other held her breath for a moment. She had kept this lie up for so long that she just wanted to tell Yunjin it would be okay.

But remembering what it felt like to sit against the wall on the bathroom floor, clutching her aching chest whilst losing all the air in her lungs made her want to tell the truth just this once.

Because it wasn't fine.

"I've been having panic attacks. Things started a while ago, but I... I never thought it'd get this bad. I've been training for this job all my life, and I've never struggled with it so much. God, I don't feel like a person anymore. I don't eat, I barely sleep, and I don't have a moment to even think because we've always got something to do." Chaewon buried her face in the palms of her hands.

"It's just too much, Jin. It's all too much, I don't think I can do it anymore. Sometimes I feel like I'm wasting away my life, having all those cameras on me at all times. I can't go to the park when the weather's nice, and I can't go on date nights with my girlfriend. I can't hang out with my friends every weekend, I can't even walk across the street without being recognised," She sucked in a deep breath.

Yunjin looked at her with wide eyes. Chaewon couldn't quite tell what her expression meant. But something about it made her think that maybe she shouldn't have said all that.

After a moment of silence, Yunjin's eyes trailed off to the table in front of them. "What does that mean?" She asked.

Chaewon bit her lip. "I don't... I don't know, Yunjin. I don't know how to fix this," She whispered. "I don't even know if it can be fixed."

Yunjin rested her elbows on her lap. She nervously played with her fingers, trying to find the right words to say.

They had been best friends for years before they admitted their feelings towards each other a few months ago. They even knew each other before they truly became friends, and members. In a way, they witnessed everything together; even if it was from different viewing points.

It was always the two of them.

But as she sat on the couch, shivering under her blanket and staring at her hunched over girlfriend, they felt far apart.

"I've never felt like that," Yunjin eventually said. "I've never felt like I'm wasting my life away. So I can't tell you that I understand any of it. Sometimes it's hard, sure, but I have you guys. I have you."

Her eyes darted over Chaewon. "Are you giving up on us?"

Chaewon felt time pause as her blood ran cold. "Of course not, Yunjin." She quickly answered, shaking her head.

"How would it work, Chae? We barely have time for friends, we haven't seen ours in forever. You leave and live your life. Where would we fit in? Where would I fit in?" Yunjin tilted her head up to properly look at the girl. "What about me?"

She was losing the battle against her tears. They fell out of her eyelids and slid across her pinkened cheeks, leaving behind a shimmery trail. Chaewon wished she could cry too; an overwhelming feeling seemed to be blocking her throat.

She couldn't answer. Her chest tightened, and her breath sped up.

Not again.

She counted to ten, trying to make her breaths follow.

"Chae?" Yunjin asked.

Not now.

Chaewon leaned forward, dropping the blanket on the couch as she clutched her side in hopes of the pain subsiding.