décalcomanie

6

"sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong"

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    "1! 2! 3! All in us! 안녕하세요 (annyeonghaseyo)*, ITZY 입니다 (imnida)**!" While her members chattered excitedly to their interviewers about the filming of their debut music video, favourite foods and dorm habits, Chia remained quiet, smiling her now notoriously rare but beloved half-smile, facial muscles stiffening from the effort of faking it all. She'd never felt like such a fraud before. But people liked that. People admired her for her 'cool' exterior and quiet ways. Fanpages blew up whenever she flashed the cameras a smile, and the few words she uttered in ITZY's countless interviews would be quoted for weeks on end. Chiara Kang had unintentionally gained a reputation for being 'serious about her work', 'careful with her words', and 'tsundere' when in reality, she was hiding her crippling anxiety and inability to express her emotions under an overused mask previously worn by too many of her peers and Sunbaes. She was helpless in the clutches of her fans' love.

(*안녕하세요 (annyeonghaseyo)- Hello

**입니다 (imnida) - Used when answering questions or stating a fact (declarative))

All of a sudden, Chia felt an invisible pair of arms slowly crawling up her exposed arms and forcefully wrapping its fingers around her neck. She gasped, eyes widening in shock. Her other members looked at their leader with a mixture of surprise and worry. They were greeted by the horrifying sight of their usually-stoic leader with eyes full of fear, hand tightly pressed into her chest.

"Unnie, are you feeling okay?" Chaeryeong lightly touched her leader's shoulder, pulling back quickly when Chia flinched, trembling slightly.

"Can't......can't breathe......get me out of here!" Chia screamed in her highest pitch, collapsing onto her younger member. The world was slowly closing in on her, her chest tightening more and more. The filming crew looked at each other in confusion. Who was a rookie to order them around? Shouldn't these rookies have been trained to a higher level of professionalism? They looked to the struggling Chia with some concern but mostly displeasure. Real idols would hold themselves to a higher code of conduct.

"Unnie!" Ever calm and composed, Ryujin helped up her sobbing leader from the arms of a hysterical Chaeryeong. "Yeji-Unnie, could you help me with Jisu-Unnie?" Yeji snapped back to her senses immediately, gently placing her leader's arm over her shoulder, simultaneously giving dark looks to the shell-shocked staff in the studio. Together, the procession of interlocked arms, soothing words and miniskirts inched their way back to their dressing room with 2 extremely unnerved and worried maknaes tailing behind.

"Chaeryeong-Unnie, what happened to Jisu-Unnie?" Yuna's eyes filled with tears. "Is she okay? She's always the strongest of us all. I've never seen her cry since I became a trainee, not even when she broke her leg trying to master HyunA-sunbaenim's Red choreography.......If even she can't handle this," the maknae gestured to the studio lights, "how are we going to be able to?"

"I don't know," Chaeryeong furiously wiped her tears away with her sleeve, "but Jisu-Unnie will always be strong. We don't know what's happening to her right now, but she will get better. Things always do."

"I hope so too." Yuna's eyes glistened as she hugged her Unnie tightly.

Meanwhile, Ryujin and Yeji were at their wit's end. After letting Chia lie down on some dressing-room chairs that they had pushed together, she refused to utter a word. The only indicator that she was not alright was the continuous rivulet-like tears running down her perfectly made-up face. Despite multiple attempts at reassuring her that the show producers would prioritise the artists' health before the interview and that she was doing the best out of all 5 of them so far into their debut, Chia remained silent, posture as rigid as a porcelain doll.