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disclaimer,
mentions of covid/having covid
eating problems
mentions of death
think thats it but lmk if i missed anything
enjoy! don't forget to vote and comment 💕
⊱ ────── {.⋅ 💗 ⋅.} ────── ⊰
WOULD YOU LIKE TO PERMANENTLY DELETE THIS FOLDER?
YES | NO
Sanghee stared at her phone, her thumb hovering over the delete button but she just couldn't do it. There were years of memories saved in this folder and even though yes he did hurt her she just wasn't ready to give up on everything they had, all their memories saved in this folder.
It had been two months since their break up and she just couldn't delete their photos. There was still a part of her that held hope that he'd change his mind, that he'd say he made a mistake and then it could be like it was before. However Sanghee knew that they would never be the same. The damage was done and there was no undoing it. She was the only one holding on and she needed to move on. Hyun-seok had tried helping her, taking her out for walks, playing games with her, he even tried getting her in the studio but that only caused her to break down. Now here she was phone in hand staring at a folder of their memories that she couldn't let go of.
"What's that?" the voice causes Sanghee to flinch, as she quickly turns her head and comes face to face with Jung Changmin.
"N-nothing" she stutters trying to hide her phone but Changmin was faster, stealing the device away and holding it out of reach.
"Oh that guy huh?" he says in distaste scrolling through the photos in the folder.
"You still have these?" he questions staring at Sanghee who had her head bowed in shame.
"Every time I break up with someone I delete all our photos," he says, scowling at a cheesy picture of Taesoo making a duck face.
"I-I can't..."
"Why not?"
"Cause...he was my first boyfriend and we were together for two years and-"
"And he treated you like shit for over a year so again I'll ask. Why not?" Changmin questions. Sanghee opens her mouth to say something, give an excuse but nothing comes out of her mouth.
"Yeah," Changmin says with a shake of his head. He takes advantage of Sanghee looking away from him to click around on her phone before handing it back.
'FOLDER EMPTY'
"Changmin! What did you do?!" Sanghee shrieks as she stares at her phone. Gone, they were all gone.
"Sanghee. You need to move on from Taesoo and the best way to do that is to get rid of things that remind you of him"
"But! Y-you can't just! Changmin, that was everything!" Sanghee feels her breath come in short spurts thinking about everything she's lost.
"They're memories of good times, I know. Trust me I know but you're hurting yourself more by holding onto them, just like I was hurting look at Yunhee's so I deleted them," Changmin murmurs. Sanghee knows he's only trying to help, to help her heal but instead of feeling better she feels like the void in her chest only got darker, deeper, hurting more than before.
"If you're really that upset about it you can go to your trash. They won't officially be deleted for thirty days unless you clear it but babe, I really hope you don't recover them. Let them fade away. Refresh your photo library and your life," the older idol says as he pulls Sanghee in for a hug. Changmin pets down her hair down and occasionally gives her head a scratch.
"Changmin, are you petting me like a dog?" she questions looking up at him. Changmin stops mid-pet also realizing what had been happening.
"I grew up with dogs. It's a habit. Sorry," he apologies half-heartedly. Sanghee pushes him away with a frown.
"I have a dog too and I don't go around petting people," she scolds. Changmin holds his hands up in surrender, backing away.
"My bad. I meant what I said though."
"Yeah I know...thanks."
"Course. You're like a sister ya know."
"Speaking of sisters..I'm surprised you're here so soon," Sanghee says, knowing Changmin's sister Yunhee only passed away not long ago. She doesn't bother asking if he's alright, she knows he isn't. Anyone who knows Changmin knows Yunhee was the entire world to him. She can't imagine what he's going through.
" 'm fine ya know. I mean am I sad yeah a shit ton but. I- I can't change it ya know. She's gone..." he trails off eyes glossing over.
"Chang-"
"Anyways think about what I said ok?"
"O..k.."
"Great. I should be going now, I only came in to grab some stuff. I gotta meet my mom soon...later!" Sanghee watches as Changmin shoves his hands in his pockets and quickly rushes away from the room. On her way to meet her vocal teacher Sanghee makes a mental note to message Henry or Hyunseok to ask how he's really doing.
"Hey Sanghee. Soyoung is running a little late so just hang tight ok," Hyesun says when she walks into the practice room.
"Ok!" Sanghee runs through her warm ups while she waits for Soyoung who comes in the room panting.
"Look what I got!" she exclaims once she caught her breath. She struts into the room holding a t-shirt.
"Isn't it cute! It was the last one at the mall and some other woman tried to yank it out my hands! Can you believe it?!"
"Soyoung..you were supposed to be here twenty minutes ago. Do not make me remind you that this is your job not some social gathering"
"Unnie can't it be both?" Soyoung questions pouting "cutely" but it does nothing to waver Hyesuns stern expression.
"I brought you something though!" Soyoung says as she pulls out a nice watch from her bag. She doesn't miss the way Hyesun's eyes twinkle seeing the watch as she calmly holds her hand out for it.
"Nuh-uh. I'll give you this when you forgive me"
"Soyoung-"
"I don't hear you forgiving me!~"
"Fine I forgive you" Hyesun sighs but Sanghee saw the fond smile on her lips.
"YAY! Thank you Unnie!" Soyoung shouts as she hugs Hyesun "For you!" she says handing Hyesun the watch.
"And for our baby panda!" Soyoung says placing a headband on Sanghee's head "its to keep your hair from getting wet when you wash your face. And this! A new face wash I've been trying out. It's really good and I think you should try it since ya know you suddenly forgot how to wash your face," Soyoung says teasingly but there's some underlying truth in it since Sanghee hasn't been taking care of her skin recently.
"Yeah yeah. Thanks for the gifts Unnie" Sanghee says, pulling the headband off her head.
"Noooo leave it on! You look so cute" Soyoung says, taking the headband from Sanghee and placing it on her head again.
"Ok, let me set my things down and we'll get started!"
The entire practice felt like being in a void. She was floating, going through the motions but Sanghee didn't feel like she was going anywhere. Her tone was flat, her expressions didn't match up to how she thought she was expressing them, everything was just off. Hours and hours wasted.
"Don't worry Sanghee, you'll do better tomorrow," Soyoung had said while rubbing Sanghee's back once practice was over.
"I'm just going to go home." and that's what she did. Her sister still had Pooh and Tigger for her so the apartment was quiet and it was killing her with how quiet it was.
Going into her bathroom she turns the shower on mainly to listen to the sound of the water fill the quiet noise ringing through her ears. After a few minutes she steps inside letting the hot water run down her body slowly relaxing the tension that had built up in her shoulders. She spends a long time in the shower scrubbing at her skin over and over until it's rubbed red.
Standing in front of her mirror Sanghee looks at the gift Soyoung had given her. Picking up the fluffy headband she settles it over her head before grabbing the face wash. It feels nice on her skin, a little tingly since she hadn't properly cleaned her face in weeks. When she's done she looks at her reflection. Nothing about her appearance changed, she still looks the same as before she washed her face, no magic glowing or the pimple on her chin and the blemish marks fading my magic. She's still Sanghee but her skin isn't oily and it feels refreshing.
"Refresh your photo library and your life..." Changmin had said. Refresh....refresh....refresh.
Sanghee goes to her room to put a fresh set of clothes on before looking at her phone. All the photos were still sitting in her trash, the refresh button highlighted, staring her down.
"Refresh my life..." She murmurs. Clicking her phone off Sanghee sets it aside before going into her closet. She pulls everything out, every last piece of clothing, figurine, box she hadn't unpacked, everything. She throws Taesoo's clothes in some random corner while organizing her own things. Years and years of holding onto things she should have gotten rid of by now Sanghee puts them in an empty box ready to part with them. As she goes through her dresser she finds a crumpled bunch of paper. Unballing it she sees her handwriting and a song title at the top. She hasn't seen this song in almost a year and yet the ink is still smudged on the page, pain dripping from the words written there. Quickly she balls the pages up again shoving them back in their hiding space.
"This is boring," she murmurs. She grabs her phone connecting it to her speakers to play some music. It's late so she can't play it loud but she needs something to fill the noise, to get her to feel something other than dread.
As the first song plays she instantly recognizes it as NCT Dream Boom and she gets excited. Moving about her room Sanghee sings the song carelessly tossing things about. Taesoo's crap here, a shirt she hasn't worn in years there! It doesn't take long before her room is a mess of random piles she claims she's organizing. Through the night she works through getting rid of old stuff and reorganizing everything within her room before moving to the rest of her apartment. By five am she has a trash bag and about five boxes of stuff to get rid of and by five fifteen she's fast asleep on the couch. Sleep hit her hard as she laid curled in a ball on her couch. She slept through an obnoxious ringing of her doorbell followed by someone entering her apartment and the loud sound of dishes clanking against each other in her kitchen. When Sanghee finally wakes up she's groggy, her head feeling stuffy and her muscles sore.
"Ah you're awake?" Hyunseok says. Sanghee jumps screaming.
"Hyunseok what the hell! Why are you in my apartment?!"
"To make sure you aren't dead! What happened in here?" he questions looking around the apartment.
"I'm.... organizing" Sanghee says only to frown when Hyunseok laughs at her.
"Sanghee organizing means putting things away in an orderly fashion...this is anything but that," he states.
"I was attempting to organize. Refresh my life and everything." Sanghee brushes her fingers through her hair trying to tame the messy strands but gives up when she feels it becoming frizzy.
"O...k.." Hyunseok says slowly, not at all following. "Anyways here I made you food although it's cold now since you slept forever" he says handing her a plate.
"Thanks."
"Sooo what are you doing with his stuff?" he asks. Sanghee sighs, setting the plate on the coffee table.
"I dunno. I really don't want to go to that company and risk seeing him or his sister and so their dorm is a no go too....." she avoids eye contact as she plays with the throw blanket draped over the back of her couch.
"I mean we can burn it like American women do" and maybe Hyunseok is only half joking when he says this. He doesn't care what happens to Taesoo's crap.
"No, we are not doing that," Sanghee frowns.
"Just a suggestion," Hyunseok says with a disappointed sigh.
"I'll ask Hyesun to drop it off for me. I don't want to reopen communication with him, at all."
"Did you block him? On both phones?"
"Yes he is blocked."
"Contact deleted?" Sanghee doesn't answer.
"Sanghee-" Hyunseok groans gearing up to give her yet another lecture but she cuts him off.
"I just! Being mad at Taesoo, crying, that was my fuel! I was able to write in the studio, make music move on from the sad stuff and write fun stuff and smile but since the break up...I'm- it's just-there's nothing going on up there! I can't write about anything happy or sad and all I do is wake up go to work go home and sleep"
"You didn't say eat..." Hyunseok hopes she just forgot to say it and that she hadn't been regressing on her progress again.
"Cause I don't, not really. I feel like I'm back in quarantine. The sun is up but everything feels so dark and lonely and scary and I'm just waiting for the world to get rid of me." Sanghee buries her face in her hands, hiding her face from Hyunseok's disappointed look.
Hyunseok doesn't say anything at first, overwhelmed by his own thoughts. He knows how hard quarantine was for her. Getting covid and being forced to stay away from everyone while being sick and in pain, the loneliness. He watched through a screen as she got thinner and thinner, paler as the days went on. It fucked him up for sure but it was worse for her.
"Did you ever write about it?" he questions softly. Slowly Sanghee brings her face out of her hands glancing at Hyunseok.
"Write about what?"
"What you went through...during quarantine and when you got sick?" Hyunseok doesn't know if he's opening a wound by asking this but maybe he should. Maybe he should stop trying to avoid talking about it like it never happened. Sanghee seems to think so as well as she shakes her head.
"Not really. I mean..there was one song but it's awful. It sucks."
"Maybe work on that. I mean you love a project. Make it not suck," he offers with a playful lilt in his voice that goes ignored as Sanghee shrugs her shoulders.
"I dunno."
"You said how you feel right now feels like last year so write and process those emotions. It doesn't have to be about hating Taeoo being hurt by him or just hurting from the breakup. It can just be about those dark feelings and accepting them so you can move on."
"I dunno...maybe. C-can you just hold me for now?"
"Of course...after you eat," Hyunseok says, pushing the plate towards her. He can tell by the way she looks at the plate that it's too much, overwhelming so he picks up the food eating some himself.
"We'll share because I didn't eat before showing up," he says, taking a few more bites before passing it over. Tentatively Sanghee takes a bite slowly chewing the food before swallowing it down. Her stomach churns a bit but she continues eating until the uncomfortable feeling settles in her gut.
"I'm done," She murmurs, handing the plate to Hyunseok who finishes it off before pulling her onto his lap.
"I'm proud of you."
"Thanks," Sanghee whispers but Hyunseok gives a small pat on her back.
"Seriously I am."
"Thanks," she murmurs before falling asleep again.
//
It takes a few days before Sanghee takes Hyunseok's advice to fix up her song. Hyesun took Taesoo's things earlier this morning and instead of thinking about it Sanghee went into her studio. Her headphones were settled over her ears as she played around with the track trying to make a decent demo.
Day in and day out she came back trying to move things around, add sounds, record her voice over it but it just didn't sound right. By day four she was drained mentally and physically.
"Maybe I should scrap it" she thinks. Holding the mouse she begins to move up the the delete button but the sound of her door opening gets her attention. She spins in her chair accidentally moving the mouse as she turns not realizing that by sound so she'd shifted things on the track.
"Hey kiddo!" Sanha says entering the room. "Heard you've been in for the last few days. Wanted to check out your work." Sanha loves working with Sanghee and her chaotic process. Her soundboard always looked messy compared to her colleges but it was so organized to her, everything placed where she wanted it with side notes on her process.
"There's nothing to show for it. I'm about to delete it," she says but Sanha rushes over moving her back.
"Don't do that! Let me listen to it first!" the older woman exclaims as she pulls Sanghee back. In the process of moving Sanghee the younger was still holding onto the mouse, accidentally dragging a sound across the board and shifting sounds on the track without realizing. She lets go of the technology, removing herself from her chair to let Sanha take over. Sanha places the headphones over her ears, her head bouncing along with the track.
"Why would you delete this?" she wondered once it was over.
"It's bad"
"Sanghee, are you even listening to it? It's amazing!" to prover her point Sanha unplugs the headphones letting the track play out over the speakers. Sanghee blinks not recognizing the track from what she'd been listening to previously.
"It didn't sound like that" she says leaning over Sanha's shoulder.
"I mean we can make a few adjustments like right here. It's too loud. If we bring it down it'll sound better" Sanha says going along with her suggestion. Sanghee watches intently as Sanha helps adjust things by listening to Sanghee's opinions as well. Finally it felt like something clicked, something shifting in her brain.
Sanghee easily gets immersed in her project. With Sanha's help the song is completed and she's off recording her vocals. She doesn't expect much from the company when she sends it off for approval but when they come back with a schedule wanting to record an official version and give her a music video Sanghee is ecstatic. They give her more freedom than she's ever had for this project. She gets to come up with the concept for the video, helps Kwang-Ho come up with her outfit concept and before she knows it it's an entire event and a month has gone by. She hasn't thought about the pictures that once sat in her trash folder, all the images finally washed away. It doesn't hurt as much as she thought it would because she doesn't need them, she never did. She just needed to be free of them.
"What do you think?" the director asks her, pulling her from her thoughts. The video shooting went on for four days, a day longer than she thought it would but the results had her in tears.
"I love it. Thank you so much."
"Just doing my job" the woman says, giving Sanghee a pat on the shoulder. Left alone Sanghee grabs her phone and goes to her messages. At the time Sanghee had been too wrapped up in her emotions to truly hear what Changmin had been telling her but she hopes she's not too late when she sends her message.
You were right, i didn't need those
pictures of tae and i but you
need yours of your sister and you.
I hope you didn't really delete them
Channie
No...i didn't
Did you keep
Yours and taes?
No they're gone.
Channie:
Guess we're both gonna
be alright then huh?
Yeah...guess so
"Sanghee, the crew are going to go out for a little celebration. Do you want to go?" Hyesun questions. Sanghee clicks her phone off putting it in her back pocket.
"I would love to."
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ೃ⁀➷ ꒰ a/n꒱writing this chapter made me realize i need to go into her 'inside her phone' chapter and update things now. anyways hope you guys enjoyed this chapter even though it was sorta all over the place! 💙༉
images aren't mine, all credits to original owners.
꒰BlueBirdie48꒱