"Is it that bad?" Josh asked me worried.
"Stop filming for a second," I told them and turned to Yeongjae. "Is it really okay?"
"If you want to do it and are ready for what will come with it, do it," he told me. "If you aren't that sure, I think it's better for you to not say it."
I had been silent for so long that I really wanted to speak my heart out. I didn't want to stay silent any longer because I knew that talking about it would actually help me. It had helped me a lot talking about pretty much everything with Jisung and most of the things with the girls, so being fully honest with the fans too would make me feel a lot freer.
"Guys, I really meant it when I said things will get really dark," I told Josh and Ollie. "I'm not even kidding. There is no way you can make things lighthearted. Are you sure you still want to know?"
"Only if you are ready to talk about it," Josh said.
"We didn't say it needed to be all laughs and jokes. We want to let your fans really get to know you," Ollie told me. "If you want to talk about it, we will support you and if you don't, we will support you too."
I then took a deep breath before taking one last bite of the food since I knew I wouldn't probably eat anything after I started talking. After that, I tried to relax and told them we could start recording again before I started talking.
"So, as you know already, I came to Korea when I was just nine years old and without my parents. I basically joined SM entertainment with absolutely no knowledge of Korean and had to learn things from scratch," I started explaining. "I can't speak about anything regarding SM and what happened when I was in the company so I have to skip most of the story, but let's just say things weren't easy for me neither mentally nor physically.
"I am not the tallest person on earth, obviously, but I still am around 1,70 metres tall, which is fairly tall. According to the standard BMI we use pretty much everywhere I should weight around 55 kilogrammes. That obviously doesn't apply to Kpop idols, but I still shouldn't weight less than around forty-seven kilogrammes to even be considered healthy. When I was around seventeen, I hit thirty-seven kilogrammes and would sometimes not eat anything at all for the whole day while working for nearly twenty hours a day. That was when I was at my worst."
"Thirty-seven?!" Josh exclaimed. "Oh my god!"
"I know, I'm not proud of it at all but it just got out of control," I told him. "I then gradually gained some weight again because I got way too scared but, just a few months ago, after more than a year of not checking my weight, my bandmates were very worried about me and made me weigh myself again and, well, I was at nearly forty kilogrammes. I can show you some pictures, I don't mind. You can just check the promotions for the first mini-album I was in."
I then took my phone out and showed the boys some of the pictures that weren't on the internet and where I was wearing shorts and crop tops so they could very clearly see how bad it was.
"I really don't know what to say..." Ollie said covering his mouth. "I'm honestly at a loss of words."
"It's okay, you don't need to say anything," I assured him and put my phone away. "All of the times I lost that much weight matched with the times I was mentally at my worst too. I can't talk about the SM thing, but I can talk about the one from earlier this year.
"When I was dropped out of ITZY, I felt like I was back again in square one; like I was going to be kept in JYP's basement forever and not debut because that's what had happened to me every single time. I had also been restricting my food intake a lot from long before that and worked out more than I should, so I really was in a deep dark place that I didn't know how to get out of. I was perpetually afraid of having wasted my entire life training to be something I wouldn't be able to be.
"I've honestly felt worthless all of my life. I've been tossed around and played with like a toy and only very few people have really appreciated me for who I am. I spent most of my trainee days not knowing what the word love meant. Heck, even I thought my parents didn't love me! They are very busy people and can't come to visit me practically ever, but I thought they just didn't want to see me at all; that they were tired of me too."
I had been trying to hold back my tears for a very long time but, after that, they just started to fall freely. I didn't care anymore if I was crying on camera and that millions of people would watch it. I just wanted to get it out of my chest.
"I don't think I need to tell you the exact names of all of the mental disorders I am talking about, right?" I said trying not to choke on my own words. "Anorexia, anxiety and... depression."
Josh then wrapped his arm around my shoulders and gave me a hug, which I really welcomed. I couldn't believe I had said that for the first time to anyone other than Jisung and the girls. The girls didn't even know about my depression, although they probably had guessed.
"I was once so close to ending it all," I said still crying. "That bridge... that bridge..."
Neither of them knew what I was talking about, but I was sure that there was exactly one person who would understand if he watched the video: Jisung. He didn't know about that part, but the bridge where I had taken him when he was sad about Soojin and where we had our first kiss was the bridge where I had nearly put everything to an end just a few years before.
"I'm not going to say it's all okay now and that I am fine and dandy, but I thankfully have people with me that make me feel cared for and love. I am slowly but steadily recovering, thankfully, and I really have to thank my groupmates and the Stray Kids boys for most of it," I said once I calmed down a little. "I don't want people to pity me. That's not what I want people to take out of all of this. What I really want is for people to realise that they aren't the only ones: that they aren't alone. Things really get better."
"Okay, I'm literally crying," Ollie said rubbing his eyes. "You are honestly such an inspiration, Alix."
"I still don't know what to say," Josh told me. "I'm just glad you are slowly getting to a happier place and that you have people who love you. Really, you are the friendliest, cutest, politest, most mature and most down to earth celebrity I think I've ever met and I just can't even begin to understand how you have managed to go through all of that and still be like this. You are a role model."
"I don't want this interview to become all serious now. This was just something I thought I had to talk about and maybe the best place to do it was here since I feel comfortable around both of you, guys, and since I can speak in English and really express myself the way I want to," I said drying my last few tears and smiling lightly.
"It was really a pleasure to have you here with us," Ollie said starting to wrap up the interview.
"Hopefully it's not the first and last time! I promise I will keep it more lighthearted if I come again," I told them.
"You are more than invited!" Josh said shocked. "Whenever you are free and want to, just call us! I'll give you my Kakao Talk later."
"I will bring the girls with me. I can assure you it won't get boring with all of them here," I told them and smiled. "We really are a bunch of dorks when we are together."
"That would be amazing," Ollie said. "Really, thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview with us."
"It was my pleasure," I said with a big smile.
"We usually wrap up our videos by saying '오늘은 여기까지' (That's it for today)," Josh said. "Shall we do it together."
"Of course!" I said and looked at the camera.
"오늘은 여기까지," we all said at the same time.
"Goodbye!" I said to the camera. "Make sure to check our ResQ and stream our music!"
"What she just said," Josh said and laughed.
The cameras then were turned off and I could feel myself relaxing a lot as I stood up and stretched slightly.
"I was honestly shocked when you started talking about all of that!" Ollie told me. "Really, you are so strong!"
"Thank you!" I said with a smile. "I just really wanted to get that out of my chest and let the fans know about what's really going on with me. I feel like pretending everything is okay just makes things worse, so it's better to just get it out of my chest."
Yeongjae then approached me and wrapped me in a very tight hug, which I quickly responded to and danced around slightly to make it more light-hearted.
"I am very proud of you, you know that?" he said after pulling away. "Sure, I may not be your actual family, but I think of you as my younger sister that I love with all of my heart."
"Thank you, big bro," I told him with a big smile. "Let's say goodbye to the boys and the staff and leave, okay? I really want to take today as an off day."
"I won't disagree with that!" he said with a smile.
ººº
That same day I also told the girls what I had said during the interview and that they didn't know about because I felt like I should tell them before they saw it on the internet. We were supposed to be a family, and I couldn't keep those secrets any longer. I had to let them know.
That's how we ended the day crying together in a hotel room with dozens of tissues lying around. They were extremely supportive and told me they wanted me to tell them every single small thing that was bothering me and to talk about my feelings, something that I didn't really ever do. Talking about myself had never been my forte, but I guessed I would have to at least try and maybe that way I would slowly lift some weight off my shoulders instead of just letting it build up.
On the 25th, we all headed to Hong Kong after having had the Beijing concert the previous day. Josh had texted me saying they would probably release the video as a surprise on the twenty-sixth, the day of the Hong Kong concert, so I was getting more and more worried as time passed.
Going to Hong Kong also meant going to Lin's hometown, so I was really excited. I had never been there and we would allegedly be staying at Lin's father's house, so I was worried about living up to her dad's expectations.
When we reached her house after being in the car for quite a while, I was shocked to see how big the house actually was. The girls had told me about it, but I hadn't imagined it like that at all.
As soon as we parked in front of the house, a man, who I guessed was Lin's father, opened the door and Lin quickly tackled him in a hug.
"Good to see you too, Lin," he said in Cantonese. "How has the tour been? I haven't seen you in a long time."
Although my parents were from Beijing and both had always spoken in Mandarin to me, my grandmother from my father's side was from Hong Kong and had tried to teach me some Cantonese when I was very small. I couldn't understand absolutely everything, but I understood some things and guessed the rest from the context.
"Nice to see you again, girls!" he said in broken Korean and greeted the rest of the girls with a hug before turning to me.
He then just smiled and hugged me too, which had me shocked since we had never met.
"Nice to meet you, Mr Zhu. I'm-" I tried to introduce myself but he interrupted me.
"You are Alix, I know. Lin has told me a lot about you. I'm glad to finally get to meet you," he said in Mandarin with a big smile. "You don't need to be so polite and all with me. Any ResQ member is automatically part of the Zhu family."
"Let's go inside, dad. It's very cold outside!" Lin said.
We all then went inside and took off our shoes before heading to the living room. Lin was ahead of us and, when she went inside the living room, she suddenly screamed, scaring all of us but Mr Zhu, who just smiled.
"What are you doing here?! I thought you said you were busy!" Lin said.
We then all went inside and I saw her hugging someone very tightly but I couldn't see their face. When they pulled away from the hug, I finally saw that it was Fan Chengcheng, Lin's boyfriend.
I was actually a fan of Idol Producer since it first came out because I was excited to see the format I was already familiar with of Produce 101 but in China. Chengcheng, Lin and Ding Zeren had been my favourites for the whole show, so I wasn't ready to meet him in person and felt myself shying away and slightly hiding behind the other girls, especially Soojin.
"Hello, girls. It's great to see you again," Chengcheng said and stayed silent for a second. "Where's Alix?"
Leah then grabbed my hand and pulled me so I stood in front of them, which made me send her a death glare before looking to the floor to hide my nervousness.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Wu Alix," I said bowing quickly.
"Nice to meet you too," he said and suddenly hugged me. "I'm glad there's another Chinese member in ResQ. I feel like sometimes there are things we want to say but can't because of the language barrier. I'm glad she has you now."
I was so in shock I didn't move for a couple of seconds after he pulled away from the hug, which made Lin laugh.
"What's wrong, Alix?" she asked me. "Are you okay?"
"Remember when I told you I used to watch Idol Producer?" I said hoping she would get the hint.
"Yes, I remember. What about it?" she asked me confused.
"Remember when I told you I used to watch Idol Producer?" I repeated again hoping she would now get it.
"Wait! Don't tell me!" she said gasping and covering her mouth. "Oh my god! For real?"
I then just nodded and covered my face embarrassed. She was going to tease me forever and I knew that.
"I'm lost," Chengcheng said in Korean so the girls would understand. "What's happening? Why is the fact that she watched Idol Producer funny?"
"You were his favourite, babe," Lin said with a teasing smile. "She's now having an internal fangirl moment."
"Lin!" I exclaimed. "Why are you doing this to me?! It was embarrassing enough just as it was!"
"Let me have my moment of teasing! I'm the youngest, so this doesn't get to happen that often," she said and approached me. "Did you watch his fancams?"
"Oh, god, seriously!" I exclaimed. "Be thankful that we are staying at your house because if not I would have kicked your ass long ago."
"Girls, chill!" Chengcheng said and put his arms around our shoulders. "You are only staying in Hong Kong for a couple of days. Let's have peace around here and make things fun, shall we?"
"Lord, give me patience!"
Things were really getting better...
Or so I thought...