Alex's POV:
Two years after and on the Death of Alex
There was a ray of light that engulfed me after that flashback played. Then I heard her voice.
"Irog. You're done with suffering. You're in a safe place now." I heard her voice.
I opened my eyes against the blinding ray of light. I found her smiling at me.
"Welcome to the world of in between." She greeted me.
"Haneul? Where are we?" I asked her as I got up from where I laid.
Noticeably softer than the floor of the Vocal room where I shot myself in the head. She held out her hand for me to grab. I did as she offered. My mind was lost as I stood up.
"We are in a world of in betweens, Irog. We can't go up to heaven just yet, because there are still unfinished businesses for us to deal with. Like the acceptance of our families." She replied rather calmly.
"Jagiya?! What do you mean unfinished businesses?" I asked her as she walks up to a well it seemed.
She pulled me beside her and made me look down the well. Where the scene of our families crying and being angry for our loss unfolded in front of my very eyes. The kids have found me, laying lifeless, all three cried and fuck they crossed the street without looking for an incoming car! These three! Oh my god what have I done?! I looked at Haneul currently as she sighed.
"Haneul, where are we? Why are we here?" I asked her again.
"Seri... we are in between Heaven and Hell, for us to be able to go up to Heaven, we need to do things for our families to accept our sudden deaths. Look, they are destroying themselves for our loss. Our kids are in pain and they have unanswered questions about why it had to be us." She replied calmly.
I saw her parents wail, our kids cry, my family wail and question God. 'Why?!' It was too loud to hear everyone. I hyperventilated at what I am seeing and hearing.
"I've been hearing everyone's questions too. It's loud and it won't go unfortunately for us until they come to terms with our death. Our kids are the loudest." She chuckles bitterly.
"So, we need them to accept our death? What about me? I lived two years through hell?! It's a given for me to just decide on this matter, I can't live one more day, Haneul, especially not with out you." I complained to her passionately.
She chuckles to herself and briefly cleared her throat.
"I'm not saying you needed to explain yourself, Seri or that you didn't need to die like that. What I am saying is, we need to work on them accepting the truth. We need them to let go of us or otherwise stay in this world of in between and hear them cry in pain." She replied to me rather calmly.
"We need to see Captain Michael to let you know what you should do. I can't explain all these by myself. Come now, jagiya." She told me and pulled me towards the Gates of Heaven.
There an Archangel stood with his book of names. He looks up to me and smiled gently at me.
"Alexandra Christianna Schneider, also known by Korean name Kang Se Ri?" He greeted me.
"Y-Yes. That's me." I replied to him with a stutter.
"Welcome to the world of in between. You're this close to Heaven but not quite, because of unfinished business." He replied to me with a gentle smile.
"You suffered a lot this past two years and I regret you had to face that hardship alone and came to a fatal conclusion. I hope you didn't take your own life to be in this predicament of doing one final task." He continues calmly.
"Your family needs to be happy and to find peace in your passing. This includes your team members who saw you lifeless. Now before we lose focus, it is easy to find peace and happiness on earth. Believe me. As such, you have tools in your hands to guide the people you love to finding their peace and happiness. You can follow them whereever they go, you can read their minds even those unsaid words you can read them. You can also orchestrate a few actions such as whispering into their ears, they will come as a thought in their minds, you may also touch them and it could be felt by a gust of wind. You may influence a third party to do something for you so that they find peace and happiness. It will take time, Alex. Which is why you can jump into their future, five years ahead is the maximum years you can jump ahead to find someone or something that will finally bring them peace." He says and a brief pause.
I was just too dumbfounded by what he was asking me to do. I took my own life because I didn't know if I could still find another person as understanding as Haneul, someone who loves me unconditionally whether I was broken beyond repair or not. Someone who will look at me with the same love and joy she had previously despite knowing I was raped.
"You will be assigned in a Cluster of Three, because the Three of you have someone in common. Lee Chaeyeon, is her name. A bright child, if only she would stop being double mean to her team mates and everyone that surrounded her. That kid had it hard. Losing her Baby Brother and First ever love. You, Haneul and Yerin. Will work for peace and happiness of the people you loved dearly. I trust you can all do this." He follows up to me.
Then two of my 'Cluster' members appeared beside me. Yerin who looked like an Archangel herself appeared beside Haneul.
"Go and use your tools wisely. Should you have any questions, please approach me again." Captain Michael says to me.
"Hi, I'm Yerin. Thank you for taking care of Chaeyeon." She greeted me.
"Uh, Hi, Yerin. So, you're her ex she's whining about?" I asked her.
"Yeah, in the Spirit." She cheekily replied.
"I would have said in the flesh, but I'm unalive already." She clarifies her joke.
Causing a round of laughter from me.
"I like your humor." I replied to her.
"Okay, so what's the plan?" Yerin asked me.
"I'm not sure. Let's start with what we know so far." I replied to her.
We walked over to a room that was filled with tables and chairs, like a library of some sort. Yerin was leading the way. She sat at an empty table for three.
"The reason Captain Michael wanted us to focus on Chaen is because she is the hardest person out of everyone, she takes everything personally. Whereas the others quickly moved on, it is her who will take everything into her heart, refusing any help from anyone, I'm sure you already know right?" Yerin asked us as we sat on the table.
"Yeah, she's really tough as nails." Haneul replied.
"So, I suggest we work on Chaen and your kids. They may spiral out of control a year or two from now." Yerin suggested.
"Okay. We will. Now, since you're the longest one here out of us three, what do you know so far about Chaen? So we can corroborate a plan." I replied to her.
"I know that she is not written to become my destiny. Every life time we have lived, one of us will die and one of us will eventually find the 'One' and one of us will stay friends. Remembering the other person fondly as a friend. She is destined for the now J-Idol Star, her name is Miyawaki Sakura." Yerin replied with air quotes.
"Ooohhh. We know who she is, we've seen videos of her singing and dancing. The kid's too cute to be singing X-rated lyrics or double innuendo lyrics." Haneul chimed in.
"Right, I know both of you knows her already. Also she's two years older than Chaen, not a cute kid anymore, Unnie. She's capable of doing some R-Rated things." Yerin replied laughing.
"She visits her in Japan if I'm not mistaken." I replied to Yerin.
"Yeah, she does. She's really nice with Chaen too. She's a sweetheart actually. She remembers everyone of her fans no matter how long it had been since they visited her. She's too kind for her own good." Yerin confirmed.
"Does she feel the same way for Chaeyeon though?" Haneul asked Yerin.
"Since she is a fan, she treasures her fans more than anyone in the world. She felt sparks for Chaeyeon the first time Chaeyeon went to see her. Everytime they meet, she feels giddy to see Chaeyeon, she looks forward to seeing her." Yerin replied.
"Ooohhh so there's a chance you're saying?" I replied to Yerin.
"Definitely, Unnie. There is a chance, it is after all written in the stars for them to find each other again and live their lives happily ever after. I am only supposed to love Chaeyeon briefly, like a meteor shower, fleeting and beautiful. So, I need her to accept that this lifetime is over for us and that if she opened her eyes and her heart, someone else may love her again. I understand it's hard for her to do this, because the last time she tried, she fell for a two timing Giselle." Yerin replied and briefly paused.
"But that was prior to her finding Miyawaki Sakura, like if she just waited for a bit, she would have found Sakura and they could have become friends." Yerin follows up.
"So have you taken a look at what Sakura is up to?" I asked her.
"Well, I have seen her from time to time. But not closely like every day. I am too busy working with Chaeyeon's grief." Yerin replied.
"Yikes, so you've seen her drunken moments? Aigoo!" I exclaimed.
"Every single one, Unnie." She replied.
"Triple yikes. Let's divide and conquer on keeping tabs with everyone." Haneul replied.
"Are your family good now?" I asked Yerin.
"Mmmhmmm. Appa stopped smoking and he made sure to change for my younger sibling. He takes good care of him and since then he and Eomma became more bonded. He also donates to Lung Cancer Research. He is a changed man." Yerin replied.
"Oh so it's just Chaen huh?" I replied to her.
"Yes, Unnie. She's my final task." She replied.
"We'll help you, Haneul can maybe appear in hr dreams and give her a sermon." I replied to her.
"Chaeyeon merely gives in to Haneul Oppa because she's too nice to her, she enjoys her cooking but apart from that, she's not scared of Haneul Oppa's sermon." Yerin replied.
"I knew it! She doesn't want to admit that she likes my cooking, but I knew she loves it." Haneul exclaimed proudly.
"Haneul! Focus on our task!" I admonished her.
"Oh, yeah. Mianhe, Yerin." She replied.
"It's cool, Oppa. I like your idea about dividing and conquering. We got Chaeyeon, Sakura, your Team and Your families, what could go wrong right? We have one identified problem child." Yerin replied to her.
"Literally a child named Lee Chaeyeon from the Lee Gongju clan of the Joseon Dynasty of Korea." I replied giggling quietly.
"Do we skip five years ahead?" I followed up to Yerin.
"I don't want to skip ahead, Unnie. That's like cheating. I trust she will eventually let me go." Yerin replied.
Haneul burst out laughing.
"Jagi, don't you want to spend time with me in the in between? We could go to places we wanted anytime, take a trip to Japan to while away our time." She asked me charmingly.
"I'm tired, jagi to be spending some more years trying to figure out what could make Jjaeyeon happy." I pouted at her.
"We'll work together." She says pouting at me back.
I sighed at her and replied to her.
"Fine. As long as we go to Italy and visit the Castle again." I replied to her.
"Deal! We can even sleep at the Sforza Castle." She replied charmingly.
I could only smile at Haneul this time. She came through for me true to her words that I was her Hai Shi Shan Meng. Even in the afterlife when everything was said and done and a decision to end my existence on Earth was already made, she was still here for me. Determined to keep her words exactly as she had promised me seemingly eons ago and I love her... Truly.
A/N:
Thank you for reading this chapter. Nine more chapters and we are done with Forelsket Series. I hope you enjoyed this series as much as I enjoyed falling in love with the characters I wrote. Each supplemental story was told to let us know why Chaeyeon became her character. How each supplemental story told us the truth with Chaeyeon. How she was misunderstood and how she cared for her members. We all saw glimpses of how loving, caring and supportive she is. How she gave parts of herself to her members.
This flow was intentional at the beginning of this series. It was meant to show readers that not every hated character in the story is a villain. Just like these artists, we only know ¼ of their truths and their life story. To judge them pre-emptively without checking for facts or truths about them hurts them, but they have to smile through everything because they wanted to sing and perform awesome stages for their fans. I wanted to teach my readers to respect IZ*ONE as a whole and not just certain people post disbandment. We never know who among these stars are about to give up on their dreams, who among them just wanted to end themselves because of false accusations and baseless gossip mongering.
If you have nothing good to say, please don't leave your comments, messages or posts criticizing them, stating how they are flops or other hurtful words. They are still checking the old IZ*ONE Hashtags created for them when they debuted as IZ*ONE, so be careful of your words, words could hurt, words could kill, it could drive them to things they don't want to do. Be kind with your words, be considerate of their feelings, they are human just like you and I. Humans hurt in ways we can relate collectively or for some inexplicable, unspeakable. Spread light and love whenever possible, speak and write only lovely comments, constructive criticism and advise on how to better improve themselves as artists. Be a responsible fan.
- Sky